Evolution
by Cadela
Summary: A long AU on indefinite hiatus, and well-deserving of a re-write... I've been itching to re-write it and finish it up since two summers ago. Someday, maybe...
1. 1

The classroom was dimly lit, made dark by the black, stormy cloud cover outside. Rain rolled down the windows, distorting the view for Takaishi Takeru, who sat in the back of the room on the right side; the side next to the windows. He tried to pay attention, honestly he did. But when it's a Friday morning and you're sitting in Trigonometry, you want to do anything _but_ pay attention.

So he sat there in the back of the room, blue eyes focused on the window. Every now and then, lightning would flash outside, and a low rumble of thunder would cut through the classroom. Takeru smiled, leaning back in his seat and brushing blonde hair from his eyes, tucking it gently behind his ears where it fell out from again only an instant later. His hair wasn't quite long enough to be held out of his face, but it wasn't short enough to keep out of his eyes. It got to be very annoying.

The door to the classroom opened, and everyone looked up from his or her work expectantly. The teacher, Mr. Monuke, rose from his desk. "Oh, I almost forgot. Class, we have a new transfer student today. This is Motomiya Daisuke; he transferred from Osaka."

Stepping into the classroom came a boy about Takeru's height, but opposite in every other way. His hair was spiked up through the use of hair gel, short, and dark brown, although the ends showed the remains of a dark blue dye job. Pushed up on his forehead was a pair of blue-and-orange snowboarding goggles, shoving bangs up but not quite out of deep auburn eyes. Around his neck were three necklaces and a dark blue collar, and covering his wrists were several styles of bracelets. His clothes were baggy, and the tattered edges of his blue jeans hung over bright orange tennis shoes. He glanced around the room, ignoring the fact that most of the male students were staring at him with an expression somewhere between shock and mockery while the girls were stuck between shock and drooling. A slight smirk crossed his tanned face.

"You'll have to sit in the back," Mr. Monuke gestured to the otherwise full room. "Why don't you sit beside Takeru? He's the blonde boy."

Every step the boy took through the rows of students echoed with arrogance, and he flopped down silently in the desk next to Takeru. Casting him a sidelong glance, he arched one eyebrow in acknowledgement. Slinging the messenger bag off his shoulders, he fished through it idly and produced a notebook. He slouched down in the seat and started taking notes, ignoring the fact that quite a few students were still staring at him.

Takeru shifted his mindless gaze from the window to the boy sitting next to him. Everyone else at the school was completely conformist; wearing the type of clothing you'd see in an Abercrombie & Fitch window. Glancing down at himself, the blonde realized that he wasn't much better. He looked back up and studied the new student. It was refreshing to see something different once in a while, and this was certainly different. His eyes fell on the silver polymer jacket that changed colors in the lights. Grey, silver, white, silver, white, grey... Realizing that the jacket had suddenly stopped switching shades, Takeru looked up to find Daisuke eyeing him.

"What?" he asked bluntly, in slightly accented Japanese.

"Uh, nothing," the blonde turned away, refusing to blush. Instead he just went back to the window, staring at the rain as it made little wet paths down the glass. The sky was no longer a deep black color, giving hope of sunlight later in the day. Shoving his hair behind his ears again, the boy leaned his chin on his hand. Today was going to be incredibly average.

By the time lunch hour rolled around, the sun was out and there was a strong breeze shoving the rain clouds across the blue sky. Takeru sat outside at a table with his friends, eating his soggy lunch. His mother had made him the same lunch every day since he started kindergarten – a sandwich, an apple, and a box of juice. It was lame and he felt like a little kid, even though he was 17 years old. His other friends all bought lunches at the school, but here he was, still dragging food from home. At least he'd convinced his mother to upgrade him from grape juice to a can of soda, he thought as he opened the can.

His friends were doing what they did best – gossip. Their target for the day was obviously the easiest, most vulnerable one. Motomiya Daisuke was sitting across the schoolyard, idly typing at a laptop. In between snickers, the seven boys flung insults.

"I bet he's one of those computer geeks that downloads porn all day."

"No doubt. He couldn't get some from anyone but his right hand. I mean... just _look_ at him. Have you ever seen anything so weird?"

"The girls seem to like him," Takeru interrupted. "I've heard them giggling about the 'hot new guy' all day."

The other boys turned and stared blankly at their blonde friend for a long moment, then turned back to sneering. "I wonder why he transferred. You think he got kicked out of his old school?"

"You think it was for fighting? He looks the type to get into a fight."

"Nah, usually if they get kicked out they don't let you transfer. Especially if it's for fighting."

"Well, maybe he was in a fight but got his ass kicked, so he was entirely mortified and had to move."

"Oh come on. What parents do you know that would move because their kid got his ass beat at school?"

All eight heads were turned towards the boy at the other end of the schoolyard, gossiping randomly. Finally, Takeru stood up, shoving the empty paper bag that once held his lunch into the pile of trash in the center of the lunch table. "You guys are pathetic," he stated, attempting to make a dramatic exit by slamming the empty soda can on the table and marching over to where Daisuke was sitting.

Glancing up through the light blue goggles, the dark brown eyes narrowed in annoyance. Reaching up, the boy pulled headphones off of his ears and settled them around his neck. "What?" he asked the blonde in the same flat tone that he'd used earlier that morning.

Takeru sat down across from him and smiled, ignoring the faint snickering he could hear from his friends across the quad. "So you're from Osaka, huh?" One eyebrow went up for an incredibly annoyed expression. Instead of responding, Daisuke just rolled his eyes and turned back to the laptop. The blonde scowled. "Okay... so why did you transfer to Odaiba?"

"Did you want something?" the other boy asked dully. "I'm in the middle of something." He glanced up from the laptop and leaned the palms of his hands against the table. "Well?" he snapped when the answer didn't come immediately.

"I was just trying to make conversation," Takeru blinked.

"Well, don't try. Please. I'm not interested. Thank you." He turned back to the screen without another word.

The other boy sat there, slightly stunned. He sat that way for a minute or two. The whole time he just stared blankly, trying to comprehend the cold way he'd been brushed off.

Daisuke sighed, shutting the laptop. He cracked his neck, first on the right and then on the left, drumming his fingers on the picnic table. "Oh, that felt good. Look, if I answer your question, will you leave me alone?"

"I'm not here to hassle you or anything, I just wanted to start up a conversation," Takeru blinked in confusion. "You're new and everything and I just thought it wouldn't hurt for someone to show you a little hospitality."

Giving a snort of disbelief, the dark-haired boy leaned forward on the table, resting his chin on his hands. "How generous."

Takeru rubbed his nose. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"I don't need you to take pity on me."

"I was just trying to be nice."

"I wasn't."

"Geez, what's your problem?" he snapped.

"Ah-ha!" Daisuke pointed at him. "Now you're getting the hang of this. Get mad. Be a bastard to me, c'mon. I'll respond better."

Takeru was seriously boggled by the responses he was getting. Was this guy just a complete ass? They'd never met before and here he was, Daisuke being completely snide. Partly in confusion and partly in disgust, Takeru got to his feet. In a vague attempt at making his exit seem less of a retreat, he said, "You know, I don't think I like you very much."

"Oh, c'mon!" Daisuke called after him. "Don't be such a bad sort. Yell at me! Get pissed off! C'mon!"

Takeru glanced back once to see Daisuke back at the laptop, a smirk of satisfaction on his face.

"Hey, have you seen that hot new kid? He's sooooo cool!"

"Yeah! He's in my history class. Oh my GAWD, have you heard his voice? It's so sexy!"

"Oh GAWD, I know I know! I'm about ready to jump his bones or something!"

Giggle giggle, gossip, giggle. All Takeru had heard all day was how hot the new kid was, and as seventh hour rolled around, he was getting really bored with it. If he was holding something sharp, he would have jabbed his eyes out as the next moment Daisuke came waltzing in the door to the classroom, walking with the same overly confident step he'd used that morning. The girls started giggling and squealing to each other; the males nudged each other and made faces. Takeru sunk down in his seat with a sigh. Taking a seat in the empty row all alone seemed like a good idea at first – but now he was stuck, once again, sitting next to the cocky little new kid.

Daisuke sat down a seat away from him. At first Takeru felt safe, but the other turned and gave him a smile dripping with mockery. "Hey hey, we meet again. Takeru, right? How nice."

The blonde forced out a smile. It was met with an even bigger grin filled with so much sarcasm Takeru could almost taste it in the air.

It was sickening. All during the period, girls kept turning around in their seats to 'discreetly' check out the new kid. Several of them dropped their pencils and kicked them back a few feet just so they could move. 'If I see that happen one more time, I'm going to puke. Just right here, throw up all over my desk.' At that moment, the bell rang, and Takeru was the first one out the door.

Basketball practice felt vaguely the same as lunch had. In between drills, the team snickered about the weird new guy. For some reason, the gossip was really getting to Takeru. Normally, he would have laughed along with them or just ignored it. Today it was different. As he slammed a shot against the backboard and through the hoop, the blonde tried to figure out what was so off that he wasn't acting the same as his friends. Maybe he was just tired of their stupidity. Even so, why should he give a damn? Daisuke was a bastard, and he obviously took pride in being one. Takeru should be glad people were talking smack about him.

Swishing another shot through the hoop, Takeru shook his head. Could be that Daisuke only _appeared_ to be confident. Maybe he was really just nervous, and Takeru's sub-conscious was reacting strangely to that.

On the other hand, Daisuke did appear to be genuinely snide. Another ball went through the basket. Maybe Takeru just felt guilty for being on top of the high school food chain and seeing this new kid on the bottom. He wasn't exactly on the bottom with the girls, though. There goes the guilt factor.

The coach blew his whistle before Takeru could think it over any more. Instead, he shoved it out of his mind and tried to focus on the pep-talk. Big game tomorrow, whoo-hoo. The team always won. Always. Takeru had been on the team since his freshman year, and every game for every year they'd won. Sometimes it was close, but they won. Sometimes he wondered why the coach even bothered trying to psych them up for the next day. Didn't it feel like a wasted effort since they'd win _anyway?_ Knowing the coach, he probably credited his famous little pep-talks with the victories. He always stole the glory. Not like he was out there working his ass of to make the stupid little orange ball slide through the hoop.

In the locker room, Takeru shoved his dirty gym clothes into his bag. At least it was Friday, and he had the whole weekend to forget about the stupid new kid. He had a game tomorrow to focus on; he didn't have thoughts to waste. Resolutely pulling on his backpack, Takeru clumped outside and started home.

Home, today, was not his mothers' apartment. Instead, he was on his way to his fathers'. Every Friday, his mother worked late at the office, so Takeru went to his dads place to have dinner with him and his older brother. At least that was the plan; his father was a TV producer and often worked late himself, so typically it was just Takeru and his brother Yamato.

Not that it was a problem for Takeru. Takeru liked his brother and would give anything to spend more time with him. The problem was finding off time that they shared. Yamato was in a band, and if he wasn't doing a show or at practice, he was working. And of course he had a life to get to, which didn't always involve hanging out with his younger brother, who was four years younger than him.

Takeru took the stairs up to the third floor, fishing around in his pocket for the key. He couldn't find it – most likely he'd forgotten it at home again. Stopping outside of apartment 572, he knocked twice. He could hear voices inside, and inwardly groaned. He didn't really like Yamato's band mates, and he _hated_ hearing them all talk about the band. He almost thought about just going home instead, but the door opened just that minute.

His brother smiled down at him, ruffling his hair gently. "Hey, kid, c'mon in. I got some friends over, I hope you don't mind."

"No, 'course not," Takeru mumbled, following Yamato in the apartment and running his hands through his hair to fix it. He paused to kick off his shoes, then shuffled on into the living room.

"Well, what are the odds of this!"

Takeru jerked his head up at the familiar voice, and blinked. Sitting in the armchair in the middle of two other people he didn't recognize was Daisuke, staring at him. Groaning, he raised a hand and slapped himself in the forehead. "Somebody shoot me now."

"That can be arranged," the dark-skinned boy raised one eyebrow under the orange and blue goggles.


	2. 2

"Takeru, this is Yagami Taichi and Izumi Koushiro. It appears you already know Daisuke," Ishida Yamato gestured to the boys sitting in the living room.

Takaishi Takeru dragged his eyes away from Motomiya Daisuke to focus on the other two. Yagami Taichi appeared to be Yamato's age, but he was shorter with dark brown eyes and bushy brown hair. He was slight, but with an athletic build. Izumi Koushiro was shorter than them both and a little husky. His eyes were dark brown, but his short hair was a fiery red colour. They looked vaguely familiar, but then again, Takeru had a habit of thinking everyone was vaguely familiar.

The blonde nodded in acknowledgement to them both before turning back to Daisuke. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Shoving the goggles off his eyes and up to his forehead, Daisuke gave him a placid look. "I should ask you the same thing. I'm here because I was invited."

"By who?"

"Yamato-san, obviously. Who else?" he shrugged, shifting in the chair and hanging one leg over the arm. "And what the hell are you doing here?"

"Yamato is my brother," Takeru answered coldly.

Daisuke made a face and laughed shortly, as if he didn't believe Takeru. After a moment, he blinked and studied Takeru's face closer. "You're serious, aren't you?" he tilted his head to the side.

Yamato was in the kitchen, but he pulled his head out of a cabinet to grin lopsidedly at the other room. "He's serious. He's my little brother. How do you guys know each other?"

"We go to school together," Takeru muttered icily, dropping himself into a chair and glowering across the room at Daisuke.

Folding his arms behind his head, Daisuke gave the blonde a smirk before turning to Koushiro. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Interference and all."

Taichi shook his head and drummed his hands on the arm of the chair. "Ignore him, it doesn't matter. You've already got me interested, don't stop now."

"I'm really not certain if we should continue discussing this now," Koushiro cast a glance in the direction of Takeru and looked meaningfully at Taichi, who scowled in response.

"Anybody hungry?" Yamato interrupted the conversation.

"So, kid, how did practice go? Big game tomorrow, hmm?" Yamato asked Takeru over a bowl of noodles.

"Yeah," Takeru nodded. "I wish you'd stop calling me kid. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 17 years old."

"You're still a kid, kid, and you always will be. You can be 89 years old and I'll be laying on my deathbed calling you kid."

The younger blonde rolled his eyes, then glanced over and Daisuke, who was involved in a conversation with the other two boys in low tones. "Who _is_ this guy?" he wondered to himself.

"What do you mean who is he?" Yamato asked, and Takeru realized he'd wondered out loud. "I thought you knew him."

"I know _of_ him. I mean I go to school with him and all, but I just met him today. I didn't get much out of him, anyway. I tried talking to him, but he kept snapping at me. All I know about him is that he's from Osaka."

"Osaka?" one eyebrow went up in amusement. "Is that so?"

"That's what Monuke-san said this morning."

"Monuke? Ew, God, the English teacher? I hate that guy! Is he still working there?"

"Yeah," Takeru answered mindlessly. He'd just said that was his teacher; obviously he still worked there. Takeru never quite understood why people would ask questions like that. It got to be annoying. "Anyway, I tried making conversation with him at lunch and he just told me he was busy and to go away." Yamato's amused grin only got wider. "What are you so giddy about? How do you know him, anyway?"

"Actually, I don't," the older boy leaned back on the couch. "Not that well, I mean. Koushiro knows him. They've been corresponding for a few months, apparently. About two weeks he moved over here and they met up. Koushiro introduced him to Taichi and myself last Tuesday. We've sort of been idly hanging out since then."

"Two weeks? Why did he only start school today, then?" Takeru wondered out loud again.

Yamato shrugged, then turned to the other group. "Daisuke, that plan is stupid as hell, don't even try it."

Daisuke lifted one shoulder and made a face. "I'm not that suicidal, I wasn't going to go through with it. That's just the only thing I was able to come up with. I'm not very good at plans."

"Well, that's where our buddy Koushiro-kun comes into play, eh?" Taichi grinned at the short redhead. "He's a genius at this sort of thing."

"Hope so, anyway. I don't know about this. Are you sure we should play this game, Daisuke? It seems a little... I don't know... Risky," Koushiro finished the sentence hesitantly.

"I know it does. You don't have to get messed up in it, but I'm already in too deep." The boy rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "That's the thing. If you don't want to dive in, you've got to stay in the kiddy pool. There's no middle ground here." Daisuke idly pulled the goggles down over his eyes again, running his hands through his hair and locking them in behind his head. "I'm dead either way."

"We'll get you out of this, Dais," Yamato stated firmly, then rose. "Takeru, help me with the dishes, okay?"

Takeru followed his brother into the kitchen, confused. Hearing the tail end of conversations was always something that annoyed him, because he never understood anything. More often than not, people never wanted to go back and recap what they'd been talking about. He had a feeling that he wasn't supposed to hear that much of the conversation anyway.

Takeru waited quietly for Yamato to say something as he dried the wet dishes that were handed to him. They were quickly running out of dishes. Takeru sighed, tired of waiting. "What were they talking about?"

"A gaming session," his brother answered a little too quickly, not looking up from the sink. He was lying.

Takeru sighed again, changing the subject. "When's dad coming home?"

"No clue. Late, probably. A little before midnight, most likely; that's when he shows up most nights." He glanced over at his little brother. "You have a curfew of ten, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Daisuke lives near you, you know that?"

"He hardly said five words to me, how would I know? Sorry."

Yamato shrugged. "No big deal. He lives in Hanami Heights. That's only a few blocks from you."

Takeru tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, so?"

"So would you mind if you had to walk home with him instead of me driving you? I have things I have to do."

"Ugh." The younger boy made a face. Walk home with the bastard? "Let me guess, you have to do something involving the band?"

"Exactly, kid," Yamato dried his hands on a towel. "He's a nice guy, you know. Just don't let him get to you. He's like a dog, you know? If he senses fear, he attacks. So just play it cool when you're around him and he'll back off. I promise."

Takeru sighed once more. "It's better than walking home alone I guess."

"Thanks, Takeru."

He shrugged a bit, although mentally he was thinking about when the last time was that his brother had called him Takeru instead of kid.

Takeru shoved his hands in his pockets and walked a few steps away from Daisuke. The latter had headphones on and was singing under his breath. After a few blocks, he placed one earphone behind the ear. "Hey."

"What," Takeru responded flatly.

He jerked a thumb over to the other side of the street. "You hungry?"

Takeru glanced over in the direction Daisuke pointed at. "Ice cream? I'm up for it, I guess."

"I'm only this nice when I'm tired, so appreciate it." Daisuke trotted across the street. "I'll be just as much a fucker as I was today next time you see me."

"Good to know," Takeru mumbled under his breath.

"Does it always get this cold around here late at night?" Daisuke asked as they stood in line, the muted music echoing from his headphones.

"Yes. Do you always eat ice cream when you're cold?"

"Honestly? Yes. What do you want? I'll buy."

"I can get it, no big deal."

Daisuke shrugged and yawned. "Not gonna argue with you so I can spend my money."

"What's the weather like where you come from?" Takeru asked, making idle conversation.

"Very hot."

"Hot? Like all year round? I didn't know Osaka was that warm."

"Huh? Oh, Osaka, right. No, I didn't mean all year round. It's just pretty warm in the spring and summer, that's all."

Takeru glanced at Daisuke. Daisuke was looking back at him, straight in the eye. He was either telling the truth or he was a damn good liar.

"Hey, Dais, can I ask you something?"

"Don't call me Dais," the dark-haired boy growled around the straw of his milkshake.

"Why not?" Takeru protested. "Yamato did."

"Yamato's allowed to. You are not. Call me Daisuke like everyone else does. It's not that hard to pronounce, I promise. Say it with me. Daisuke."

"Okay, I get the point. I won't call you Dais. So, _Daisuke_, can I ask you something?"

"You can ask, but that doesn't mean I'll answer."

The blonde rolled his eyes. "Why wouldn't you talk to me at school today?"

"Because I get the feeling you're one of those preppy fuckers that thinks they can walk all over whoever they want." The words stopped Takeru cold, and he spun around to face Daisuke. Through the orange goggles, Daisuke's glare was hard and icy. "I'm used to people like you. Can't stand 'em. Play nice just so they can get close and knock you down. I've been burned too many times. I don't put up with that shit."

"So you just decided to guess on my personality instead of trying to find out what I really was?" Takeru asked, gritting his teeth. Yamato's words echoed in his mind. _ So just play it cool when you're around him and he'll back off._ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not like that."

"We'll see." Daisuke pointed behind his head at a tall sky rise building. "I'm home. Bye." He turned and trotted off towards the building.

Takeru sighed to himself. He'd meant to ask about the discussion they'd had at dinner – the "gaming" discussion – and he'd completely forgotten. Somehow, he'd have to make sure he had another chance to ask about it.

Takeru walked to school slowly on Monday. He was in no hurry to get to his first hour and sit down next to Daisuke. He had a feeling that he was in for a bit of hassling.

Outside on the quad, a group of seniors were all standing in a small circle, laughing. 'Probably picking on some little freshman boy again,' Takeru thought to himself. The idea made him feel annoyed. He was even more annoyed as he got closer and realized the victim wasn't a freshman, nor was it a boy. The guys were hassling a girl he'd recognized from some of his classes. They were trying to pick her up, apparently, because she kept trying to shove past and they'd grab her on the arm and slide out some words in a sleazy tone that left the other boys laughing. Takeru paused on the stairs and tried to come up with a way to make the seniors back off, but it would be like taking food away from a hungry animal.

"HEY." Something flew across the quad and slammed into the back of the head of one of the seniors; the senior who currently had his hands on the girls arm. All five seniors spun around to see who'd dared to cross paths with them. Takeru didn't even have to look. A quick glance at the object that had hit the senior already told him.

Orange and blue goggles lay on the grass, cracked from impact with the hard head of the senior boy.

Daisuke stood about two yards away from the seniors, a look of complete disgust on his face. "Why don't you leave her alone? She's not interested. Take a hint."

"Back off, kid, this is none of your business."

Daisuke stepped closer. "I just made it my business. Let her go."

"Look, kid." Apparently, 'kid' was the only thing they could come up with to call him. Vaguely, Takeru wondered why sometimes 'kid' could be an insult and yet sometimes, when someone like Yamato would use it, it could be affectionate. "Just go away. She doesn't need any help; she likes this. She's just playing hard to get, that's all."

"Are you kidding? She's obviously not even remotely interested in you. She's not going to give you any, she never will. So back off of her and go fuck your right hand."

"You little..." the senior dropped the girls arm and started towards Daisuke. The two stood with inches between them, glares of contempt mirrored on their faces.

"What is going on out here?" Standing at the top of the stairs was the dean of the school, hands on her hips. "You boys had better just be playing. I don't want to have to throw anyone out for fighting."

The senior looked up innocently. "Fighting? Oh, no, we were just introducing these two little kids to each other, that's all."

"Good. Now get to class," she snapped.

Slinking around Daisuke, the senior snarled under his breath, "This isn't finished. Freak."

Daisuke watched him go, the glare only slightly modified by a smirk of arrogance. After the seniors had gone, he held out his hand to the girl, who'd been shoved down in the anticipation of a fight. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Oof," she grunted as he hauled her to her feet, dusting herself off. "Thanks a lot. Those guys can't take a hint."

"No problem. I can't stand guys like them anyway." Folding his arms behind his head, Daisuke studied the girl. With short brown hair, tucked out of her deep brown eyes by pink barrettes, she was about four inches shorter than him and very slight. She busily brushed dirt and leaves off her clothes, then looked up to notice him watching her. "You look very familiar, but at the same time I'm almost certain I've never met you before. What's your name?"

"Yagami Hikari. Everyone calls me Hikari-chan. It's very annoying, I hate being short."

"Yagami? Wait, wait. Are you related to Yagami Taichi?"

Hikari tilted her head to the side. "Yeah, he's my older brother. Why? Do you know him?"

"Yeah, uh, slightly." Daisuke shifted the bag over his shoulder. "We should get to class."

"Yes, we should. How do you know my brother?" she asked as they headed up the stairs and into the school building.

"Friend of a friend. He wants me to join the soccer team."

"Oh, you play soccer?" she asked, genuinely interested.

"A bit. Used to play on the team back home, anyway. Not sure if I want to get into it again, though."

"You should join the team. My brother is the assistant coach, and he is excellent. Oh!" Hikari blinked. "I'm sorry, I never asked you for your name."

"Uh? Oh. Motomiya Daisuke. I'm that hot new kid," he tossed her a crooked grin.

Her brown eyes that looked so much like Taichi's widened. "Oh! Oh! My God, you're kidding! That's you? Well I guess I never _have_ seen you around... Wow. You are pretty... uh, this is my class," she pointed over her shoulder. "I have to go."

Daisuke grinned a bit more at the light pink blush on her face. "Hey, do you have first or second lunch?"

"Umm, second."

"I'll find you during lunch today."

Grinning like a bit of an idiot, Hikari bobbed her head in agreement. "Uh-huh. Okay. No problem. Thanks!" she called after him as he walked down the hall. "Ohhhh Lord. He _was_ hot. And he's eating lunch with me! Eee," she squealed quietly to herself, turning around and skipping into class.


	3. 3

Takaishi Takeru sat at the table, listening to the gossip. He wasn't _really_ listening... he could hear the words, but they weren't registering in his mind. Instead, his eyes were across the quad. Sitting at the exact same table as Friday, Daisuke was leaning on the bench, talking with that girl. Why would he talk with some girl, but not with him? The laptop was barely hanging out of his bag on the table, but he hadn't even glanced in its direction since he sat down. For the last twenty minutes, he'd been deeply involved with his conversation with the girl.

"Takeru?"

The blonde blinked and turned. "Huh? What?" he asked his friend, who was staring at him expectantly.

"Weren't you listening? We're taking bets."

"Bets on what?"

"On if the new kid is a fag or not. I bet ten he is. You want in on this?"

Takeru stared for a moment. "Uh. Hey, I don't mean to break it to you, but do you realize the only person he's talked to since he showed up at this school is _that_ chick?" he pointed across the quad.

"Who, Yagami Hikari? Dude, she talks with all the fags. She hangs out with that super-smart kid... you know... what's the name of that smart fag?" he asked one of the other guys.

"That guy from Tamachi? Ichijouji Ken?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one. He hangs around with Hikari all the time. She digs fags."

"If you use that goddamn word one more time, I'm gonna pop you one," Takeru growled. The table fell silent for a moment.

"What word? Fag?" the boy asked.

The blonde boy slammed his fist into the nose of his friend, shoved to his feet, and walked off, leaving the boy on the ground, cradling his bleeding nose, and his other friends circled around him. He'd be called into the office later, probably suspended. His mom would be angry. But he really didn't care at this moment. He sat down next to Motomiya Daisuke without saying anything.

The dark-skinned boy turned away from Hikari and eyed him. "What the hell went on over there?"

Takeru shrugged. "He kept calling people fags and I can't stand that word."

Daisuke raised one eyebrow, a slow smile crossing his face. An actual smile, not one born of arrogance or a smirk. "Kid, you just earned yourself a hell of a lot of respect from me."

"Please don't call me kid."

"A'ight." Daisuke turned to the girl sitting across from him. "Hikari, this is Ishida Takeru."

"Takaishi Takeru," he corrected him. "And you're Yagami Hikari. You play on the volleyball team, don't you?"

"Yes," she nodded. "And you're the basketball player. I've seen you play; you're very good. I'm on the squad."

"Cheerleading?"

Daisuke made a face. "Ugh, you're a cheerleader?"

She laughed a little nervously, nodding. "It's fun, really. I hate most of the girls on the team, though. Hateful little wenches."

"Wenches? Ha. All right, I'll let the cheerleading thing go I guess." Daisuke glanced at Takeru. "What?"

"Huh? Oh, I was just looking at the stuff on your wrists."

The red-haired boy grinned, stretching his arms out in front of him so all three could admire the bracelets. "They don't get heavy, if that's what you're going to ask. I get asked that a lot. Want to see something?" He slid off a dark blue one and dangled it in front of the blonde. "I got this one from the first girl I ever had tell me I was right about something. Girls never tell me I'm right." He slid it back on his wrist, then snapped off a pale green one and handed it over. "Here."

"What's this?" Takeru studied it carefully.

"It's yours. For sockin' that guy in the face. Nice punch, by the way."

Hikari stuck out her tongue at Daisuke. "Hey, how come he gets one and I don't?"

"Because _you_ didn't knock some guy flat on his ass!" Daisuke slid a yellow bracelet off his wrist anyway and handed it to her. "Value that sucker, I've had that one for a while."

Hikari giggled as she slid it on. "Aw, it looks very good on me! Okay, I have to get to class. Thanks, Dais!" she grabbed her stuff and jumped up. "Bye, Takeru, nice to meet you. Oh! Lunch again tomorrow?"

"Mm-hmm," Daisuke nodded after her as she scampered off. He turned back to Takeru. "What are you looking at _now?_"

"How come she got to call you Dais, too?"

"Because she's allowed to."

"When will _I_ be allowed to?" Takeru scowled a little.

Flashing a bright grin, Daisuke tapped him gently in the middle of his forehead. "When you're not such a stupid prick."

Takeru sat in class, waiting for the bell to ring. He only had one hour to go, and he still hadn't been called down to the principal for fighting. It was possible he'd get away with it. Just one more hour. "Come on, come on, come on," he whispered under his breath to the clock. Two minutes and one hour. Two minutes. Twooooo minutes. Ah-ha! One minute!

"Takaishi?"

Damn! Takeru sighed and stood up, pulling his backpack on and holding out his hand for the pass down to the principal. On his way down to the office, the bell rang and students flooded out of classrooms. Maybe if he just went to his next class and said he'd never gotten the pass... no, his teacher would recall giving it to him. And besides, he'd probably get in more trouble for skipping out on the principal. So instead of ditching, he shuffled down the stairs and into the office.

As he sat there in the principals office, in a hard wooden chair that was making his ass very sore, he tried to listen, but instead was focusing on the bracelet hanging around his wrist. Why was he wearing this thing? More important, why didn't it bother him that he was wearing it? Only girls wore jewelry. He was going to be teased for it, just like Daisuke was except worse, since he was widely known and sort of highly respected. The only thing worse than being on the bottom is being on top and falling to the bottom. Takeru would not let himself fall. He reached over and started to unsnap it, but stopped halfway through and snapped it closed again.

No, he was going to leave it on. It didn't matter what people thought of him. He kind of liked it, to be honest. And besides, if they teased him... screw them. His concern with what everyone else thought of him didn't matter at the moment. If they were going to pass judgment on him for a bracelet snapped around his wrist...

"...allow violence in this school, young man! What possessed you to punch him? I'm told you two are friends!" the principal was saying.  
"Were friends," Takeru looked up and corrected him. "I'm not sure why I hit him. He kept calling someone a fag and it irritated me."

"Why?"

"Because this person is..." He paused. Not a friend. Acquaintance? What was he, anyway? He was just some guy that knew his older brother. "My mom always told me 'fag' was an ugly word. I've been raised to hate it."

"I don't think your mother had violence in mind when she taught you it was an ugly word," the principal raised an eyebrow. He tapped his fingers on the desk slowly. "In fact, what if we give her a call right now to see what she thinks of this whole thing?"

Takeru sighed inwardly. "She doesn't like being bothered when she's working." In reality, he knew for a fact his mother would be outraged by the fact that Takeru had been fighting, and even madder when the principal explained how the word 'fag' was apparently ugly. His mother had never even mentioned the word to him, let alone teach him it was ugly.

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't disturb her at work," he smirked at the blonde. _Son of a bitch,_ Takeru thought._ I bet he threatens all kids with that to make 'em sweat. _ "I'll have to assign you detention time for this, Takaishi. I could suspend you, but since this is your first offense," smirk smirk, "I'll let it go. Saturday school. This weekend. If you aren't there, I _will_ suspend you."

Takeru sagged into his seat, rolling his eyes a bit. Not only was the principal a jackass and a failure at being intimidating – really, he just came off to be annoying – but now the rest of the class was staring at him and whispering a bit. News traveled fast in Odaiba Central, and apparently they'd already heard about his violent episode.

In the seat away from him, Daisuke had headphones in his ears. He'd had them in first hour, too, and didn't take them off to even acknowledge the blonde. This time, though, Daisuke was writing something in his notebook and inconspicuously tilted it towards him. "How much?" it said simply.

Takeru pulled out some paper and scribbled a response, sliding it to the edge of his desk so the other could read. "Saturday school."

Daisuke nodded once in response and started writing again. Takeru sighed, stretching a bit and starting to take notes. Only one minute had passed before something hit him on the head and bounced onto his desk. He opened the note quietly, settling it next to his notebook and reading it in-between glances at the blackboard.

"I meant to ask you why your brothers name is Ishida and yours is not."

It was certainly an odd question considering they were risking detention time passing notes, but Takeru scribbled a response anyway, then tossed it back to Daisuke, who caught it in his neatly in his right hand and swept it under the desk to read. "Takaishi is my mothers name and I live with her. Ishida is my fathers name and Yamato lives with him. My mom went back to her maiden name after the divorce and I got it, too."

The note sailed back. "Sorry," it read. Takeru glanced at Daisuke and shrugged. The other studied him for a minute, eyes narrowing in scrutiny, but he shook his head and went back to taking notes from the front of the room. Takeru turned back to his own notebook. Another few minutes passed before a note thunked him heavily on the head again and fell to the floor. He picked it up as discreetly as he could, then opened it, eyes focused on the front of the room. ­_I'm going to get caught... I'm going to get caught..._ Amazingly, he didn't get caught as he opened it and settled in to read it.

"Are you going to Yamato's today? I have a lot of respect for you after lunch. I would have socked him too. Everything goes better with bacon." Takeru blinked. Bacon? "You don't have to wear that if you don't want to, I won't take offense or anything. Do you know Yagami Hikari's last hour class? She wanted me to walk her home but I forgot to ask her what her last class was."

Takeru took a moment to write out his response, trying to avoid getting caught again. "I go to Yamato's on Fridays. Thanks. My hand hurt a bit after I hit him. Bacon? I don't care about wearing it. I don't know Hikari much so I don't know her last class. Lockers are alphabetical thought so she shouldn't be very far from my locker. Do you like her?"

"I like her, why would I talk to her if I didn't? Yes bacon. Nice crisp dark red bacon."

"What the hell does bacon have to do with anything?"

"Everything!"

The bell rang then and Takeru tucked the note into his notebook, standing up and shoving things into his backpack. He looked back up to see Daisuke waiting for him. "What?" he asked.

"Come _on,_" the other boy hopped up and down a few times anxiously. "You're so damn slow. I promised her!"

"Oh," the blonde blinked, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and heading out the door, Daisuke striding alongside. He stared down at his feet, then at Daisuke's. His step was unsteady and wavering, but Daisuke's steps were strong and confident. It was so weird. Daisuke _had_ to know everyone in the school was snickering about him behind his back, and yet he kept marching on without falter. A hand passed in front of his gaze and swept his eyes back up.

Daisuke raised one eyebrow at him. "Y'okay in there? I'm up here. What're you thinking about?"

"Uh? Oh. Just wondering."

"About?"

"Where do you get _off_ with it?" the question came out a little rougher than he intended it to. "I mean... you're so different. And yet you don't even give a damn. How?"

Daisuke smirked a bit, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "It's like this, Takeru. Who knows more about myself than, well... myself?"

"No one, I guess," Takeru blinked.

"Exactly. So why should it matter what someone who doesn't know me as well as I do thinks?"

"I don't get it."

"All right, let me break it down a little bit more. These people don't know shit. I know what a badass mother fucker I am, so why should I give a damn what they think? They can take their opinions and go to hell for all I care."

"Congratulations, Daisuke, you just used all the curse words in less than twenty seconds."

"Did I? Oh, no, I didn't use bitch."

"There, you just said it."

"But I want to use it in context of the statement!"

"Hi, Daisuke!" Hikari's voice interrupted the conversation. Takeru felt a pang of resentment. They were getting along, and then she had to ruin it.

Daisuke smiled at her, then glanced at Takeru. "Thanks for leading the way, kid."

"Don't call me kid, dammit. If you call me kid, I'm going to start calling you Dais," the blonde threatened.

"Do you want to walk home with us?"

"Huh?" Takeru blinked.  
"Walk home with us?" The boy waved a hand in the air. "You _do_ live near me. I don't see why you should go alone when I'm heading that way _anyway..._ C'mon." Making a face as the other hesitated, Daisuke turned and started out the door. Hikari followed him, and after a split second of thinking, Takeru hurried to catch up.

"Sorry it took us so long," Daisuke was telling Hikari. "I forgot to ask you what you had last hour."

"Oh! I was kind of wondering. I didn't wait long, don't worry. My last hour is chemistry. It's very boring."

"Chemistry? Third floor? Who's your teacher?"

"Harroway."

"Ah! Mine too! I have her third hour."

Hikari glanced back at Takeru who was trailing one step behind. "Who's your chem teacher, Takeru?"  
"Huh? Oh. Brinesfelder. He's nice enough. It's hard to make something like chemistry seem exciting, though. I guess he tries his hardest. He's pretty funny."

"Very cool," Hikari grinned. "What other classes do you take?"

"Hmm? Me? Umm, let's see. First hour I have Trig... second hour is chem, then I have study hall and then I go to band..."

"Band?" Daisuke snorted.

"What's wrong with band?"

"Takeru. Don't you know that 97 of the kids who take band are loser geeks?"

"No. Where do you get your statistics? And hey, Yamato is in a band, does that make him a loser geek?" Takeru smirked.

Daisuke smirked back. "The difference is, Yamato is in a rock band and you're in a lame ass school band. Fourth hour is band, then you go to lunch. Seventh hour you're in English with me, so what do you do during your other two hours, hmm?"

"History and creative writing."

"Creative writing, huh? You into writing and shit?" Daisuke asked, digging his hands further into his pockets.

Takeru was now walking in between the two. "Yeah, I'm into writing and 'shit.'"

"That's cool."

"What classes do _you_ take, Mr. Suave?" Takeru snarled.

"Let's see. Trig. Second hour is psych, third hour is chem, fourth hour I have soc, fifth I have study hall, sixth is drawing, and seventh is English."

"You take drawing?" the blonde tried to sound snide, but failed at it miserably.

"Yep."

"Any good?"

"Not really."

"How long have you been drawing?" Hikari asked.

"As long as I can remember. I kind of wanted to be an artist when I grew up as a kid, but you know... I'm not into that starving artist idea anymore," Daisuke shrugged.

Hikari tilted her head to the side, brown hair falling from behind her ear. "You don't have to be a starving artist. You can live pretty comfy as an artist."

Daisuke shrugged. "Eh." He was about to continue when there was a noise from across the street. Someone screamed, and then a loud crack exploded in the air. Something smashed into the concrete building next to the three, spraying them with a burst of concrete dust. "Fuck!" Daisuke snarled, shoving Hikari into Takeru's arms, ripping open a pocket on his jeans to pull out a .22.

"Holy shit!" Takeru yelped. The thing that had exploded into the building wall was a bullet. They were getting shot at!

"Let's get the hell out of here," Daisuke shoved the two again, hopping a few steps backwards and then pushing them into a run. Another shot exploded and the red-haired boy ducked, dust showering down on him. "Run faster," he commanded.

He didn't have to say it twice for the three to sprint on.


	4. 4

Huddled in an old parking garage, Takaishi Takeru pinned his hands between his knees to stop them from shaking. He'd never been so nervous in his life. Yagami Hikari was sitting next to him, staring with wide eyes. Her eyes were so big and she was so short that for a moment she looked like she couldn't have been more than ten. It was dark in the garage, the only light spilling from a window that was half-boarded up.

Motomiya Daisuke was standing at that window, watching the outside. In his hand was a .22 caliber, and he hadn't moved since they'd ducked into the building. The only sign that he was still alive was the slight movement of his shoulders as he breathed. He finally glanced over in Takeru's direction. He clicked the safety off on the gun and turned away from the window, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to relax a little. "I'm gonna go out and take a look around. Stay here with her," he pointed at Hikari.

Hikari shuddered violently and pressed against Takeru. The blonde put one arm around her, as if that would miraculously protect her from flying bullets.

Daisuke paused, leaning one hand on the collapsed boards that covered the only thing that remotely resembled a door, and debated the sense in going off. He wanted to get out of here, and the only way to do that would be to make sure it was all clear. And he had a gun and he knew how to handle himself. But Takeru and Hikari would be left unprotected. Something was kicking him in the ass and telling him not to go.

Finally, he shook his head and slid out the door, if that's what you could have called it. The garage was one of the first places he'd looked for when he moved to Odaiba. He needed somewhere to crash when stuff like this happened, and the abandoned garage, smack in the middle of an old car graveyard, made a perfect spot to sit and wait.

He had a feeling that he would need a new spot to sit after this.

Takeru shivered. He hoped Hikari didn't feel it, but he was shivering. He glanced at his watch again. Only a minute had crawled by – no, two – since he last looked at it. He was incredibly antsy.

"Takeru?"

"Hmm?" he jumped slightly as Hikari whispered to him. "What?"

"Nothing. How long has he been gone?"

"Seven minutes. Eight," he sighed at his watch.

The brunette shifted a little. "Will you go look for him? If he's not back by ten minutes? I'm scared."

The blonde chewed on his lip a bit. "I don't know. He said to stay with you."

"What if we stay here forever? What if we stay here and die! Oh my God! What if he's dead and they're coming for us right now!" Hikari yelped.

"Geez, would you be quiet?" Takeru placed both hands over her mouth. "If it makes you feel better, I'll go out and look for him. Okay?" She nodded, hands still over her mouth. "Good."

Folding her legs up in front of her and huddling forward, she watched the blonde as he slid out the same way Daisuke had gone. She hummed to herself quietly to ward off the incredible silence. Rocking back and forth, Hikari was increasingly nervous as seconds turned into minutes that crawled by. Part of her regretted sending Takeru out alone; what if _he'd_ been killed, too? She'd be sitting here waiting for him for the rest of her life! "Pleeeease hurry back, Takeru," she whimpered.

Takeru shuddered. Every little noise seemed to threaten him as he slid through the junkyard, trying to make as few noises himself as was possible. Unfortunately, he was failing miserably and had tripped over things a few times, earning several bruises and probably tipping off whoever it was that was on the prowl for him. He paused to lean against a wall, trying to stop his heart from racing. Questions shot through his mind. "What the hell am I doing here? What is _up_ with Daisuke? Why were there people shooting at me? Why does he like Hikari? She's kind of annoying."

Pushing everything down, he straightened up and turned the corner.

He was staring down the barrel of a gun.

Daisuke stood at the other end of it, a flash of surprise crossing his eyes before he looked utterly pissed off. Tapping the barrel firmly against Takeru's forehead, he snarled, "Don't you _ever_ do that again. I could have killed you!"

Forcing down the vomit that had instantly risen in his throat the second he'd turned the corner, Takeru shook his head. "Hikari sent me to look for you. She got worried."

"Whatever. It doesn't matter, there's no one here anyway," Daisuke tossed a look around the yard as he clicked the safety back on the .22. Something occurred to him as he jerked his head towards Takeru. "Wait, Hikari sent you to... God dammit! I told you to stay with her!" he shoved the blonde out of the way and raced off towards the old garage.

Takeru followed, desperately trying to match speeds. "But she was worried and she..."

"Fuck you, Takeru, you left her alone!" the darker boy yelled over his shoulder as he picked up the pace and left Takeru in the dust.

Takeru slid into the garage to find the boarded 'door' lying on the ground. He took a step inside to find Daisuke sitting on the floor, chin resting in his hand, and one incredibly pissed off look on his face. "Umm. Where's Hikari-chan?" the blonde asked nervously.

"The hell you think she is? Gone." One eyebrow went up. "Fuck you."

"Geez, how was I supposed to know!" Takeru bristled, his patience being shoved to the brink. "I don't even know _where_ we are, let alone _why_ we're here and _what_ is going on! Why the hell are people _shooting_ at me, Daisuke?"

Daisuke didn't even flinch as Takeru's voice rose. "Because you were with me," he replied flatly. "And they were shooting at me." The dark haired boy shoved to his feet, snatching the .22 that rested only inches from his hand. He lifted it up and aimed it point-blank at Takeru's head, one eye narrowing. "I should kill you right now."

The blonde stopped cold, swallowing hard. "Uh."

"I _could_ kill you. One little flick of the wrist and there you go." A smirk twitched across his dark face. "Heh."

"T-They'd know."

"I could be gone by tonight."

"Shit, don't."

"I wasn't going to," Daisuke pulled the gun away and shoved it in his pocket. "Safety was on the whole time."

"God." Takeru wiped sweat from his forehead, then followed Daisuke as he walked outside the garage. "Don't do that. Scared the hell out of me."

"That was the point, Takeru," Daisuke shrugged.

"Where are we going?"

"_We_ are going nowhere," the red-haired boy turned to scowl at the other. "_You_ are going home. _I_ am going to Taichi's to attempt explaining to him why his sister is now kidnapped or even dead."

"Why can't I help?" Takeru reached out and grabbed Daisuke's arm. "Daisuke, why can't I help?"

Daisuke stiffened, whirling around and ripping his arm out of the others grasp. "Touch me again and the safety will be _off._ You have helped more than enough, Takeru. Now go home."

"No. I'm coming with you."

"Why the hell are you so persistent? Get away from me."

"Come _on,_ Daisuke."

Groaning, Daisuke rubbed his temples with his fingers. "Okay. Okay! You're coming to Taichi's and then you're going home. Do you understand? And that's it! This never happened and you don't know anything about it. All right?"

Takeru nodded innocently.

"And don't think this means we're friends. God." Daisuke shook his head and started jogging at a slow pace so the blonde could keep up. "God, you're slow as hell."

"I'm one of the fastest guys on the team."

"Then the whole team is slow as hell." Daisuke turned away and focused on the rhythm his feet made on the sidewalk as he ran, and the pattern they formed with Takeru's footsteps.

Ugh... The blonde was an annoyance. He was so insistent on hanging around with Daisuke. Casting a sidelong glance at him, the dark-skinned boy blew out a short breath of frustration. He was a tag-a-long. He picked someone to follow and then followed them until he got bored and moved on.

Daisuke hated tag-a-longs.

Takeru's main attraction to him was the fact that Daisuke was different from everyone else at the school. How stupid was that? Just because he wasn't a goddamn conformist he had to deal with this clinginess? It was like babysitting his nephew or something, walking around the apartment with the four year old attached to his right leg.

Which was an interesting thought considering Takeru was running on his right side.

Yamato had mumbled to him a few nights ago that allies were always good, but this... kid... this little preppy whiner... what kind of an ally would he make? Especially when he didn't listen to orders.

Shoving all the thoughts down, Daisuke turned and slowed as they arrived in front of a tall highrise apartment building. "Taichi is on the fourth floor." He stopped by the stairs. Takeru kept heading for the elevator.

The blonde looked back when he realized he was alone. "What?"

"I always use the stairs."

"And I always use the elevator."

"Then I'll see you on the fourth floor. Apartment 417." Daisuke turned and bounded up the stairs without a glance backwards. A minute later he could hear Takeru's slower footsteps on the staircase.

_Tag-a-long._

Taichi opened the door to the apartment with a bowl of noodles in one hand. "Oh. Hey Dais, and... uh... Yamato's little brother. C'mon in."

"Takeru," he reminded the older boy. "My name's Takeru."

"Sure, kid. Sit down, I was just about to eat dinner."

Daisuke flopped onto the couch next to Taichi, and Takeru hesitated with an uneasy glance around the messy apartment before sitting stiffly in a chair. "Taichi-sama... we have... a problem."

"Mm? What did you do, Daisuke, fall into _another_ tangled mess?"

"Not exactly. Stop that, put that food down. This is serious." Daisuke waited while Taichi, with much protesting, set the bowl on the table. "I met your younger sister today."

"Oh! Hikari? She's cute, isn't she?"

"Taichi-sama."

"Sorry." The older boy grinned lopsidedly.

"They found me, Taichi."

The grin was suddenly erased and Taichi leaned forwards. "What? How, where?"

"I don't _know._ But I was walking your sister and Takeru home and..."

The older boy grabbed Daisuke's wrist roughly. "Where is my sister." It wasn't a question. It was almost a threat.

"Gone."

"Where."

"I don't know. We went to the garage and I left Takeru with her. He didn't stay."

Taichi swept his glare onto the blonde, who was desperately trying to sink into the chair. He turned back to Daisuke, who was starting to wince a little at the rough grip on his arm. "Find her."

"We – ow – will, okay? Ow, Taichi, stop. Let go, that hurts."

In response, the grip only got tighter. "We start tonight."

"Taichiiiii... Ow! Okay! Okay! Let GO, please!" Daisuke yelped, trying to pull his wrist from the grasp of the other. "We start tonight! TONIGHT, okay?"

Taichi finally let go, shoving Daisuke backwards into the arm of the couch with a slight flick of his wrist. "Get up. We're going to Yamato's now. Actually," he rethought his statement, "stay put, I'm calling Koushiro first."

Daisuke half-glared after Taichi, rubbing his wrist to get the circulation back. He finally swung his gaze to Takeru and sighed. "Go home now."

"No."

"Takaishi Takeru, we had a deal."

"Why won't you let me help!" the blonde started whining again. "It's obviously a big deal! Please!"

His patience had been pushed. Instead of snapping and just shooting him like he'd previously considered, Daisuke gave him what he wanted. "All right. You're in. For two weeks. And after that two weeks, you never look at me again. If you do, I'll fucking... I don't even know what yet it's so bad. Deal?" he held out his hand.

"Umm... I would say deal and shake on it, but you said if I touched you again you'd shoot me."

Daisuke groaned. "All right. Forget anything previously told to you. It's time you were filled in a little on what's going down."

"In the car," Taichi interrupted, waving the keys. "We're leaving now. C'mon."

Takeru stared at Daisuke as they drove down the road. The car was silent. He'd been promised a story and he wasn't getting one. Instead, the only thing Daisuke had said since they'd gotten in the car was asking if Taichi minded him lighting up.

"You shouldn't smoke," Takeru finally said.

Daisuke, who was sitting there staring idly out the window with the light cigarette in his fingers, blinked a little. "Huh?"

"Smoking. It's bad for you. Shouldn't do it."

Daisuke yawned, then shrugged a bit as he took a drag, reminded of the fact that he had one. "Eh, you sound like my mom."

"Daisuke, you promised you'd tell me what's going on," Takeru said quietly.

"I will. I just have to figure out where to start." The dark haired boy sighed. "All right." Reaching up, he pulled down the visor, adjusting the mirror attached to it so he could see Takeru's face. "Let's start with... how I got into this. Look. Things suck sometimes. And sometimes you run out of ways to deal with it. I ran out of ways, so I went looking for an escape. Met this guy, his name was Rud. Said he had something to take the shit away. Twenty bucks and a few hits later, I was home free."

"You took _drugs?_" Takeru yelped, like it was the first time he'd ever heard of the idea.

Daisuke adjusted the mirror again, and Takeru could see his eyes in it's reflection. They were cold and blank. "Ecstasy. It was good. But then when I came back down shit sucked again, and I decided the only way to stop the shit was to stop coming down."

There was a long pause. Taichi glanced at the boy next to him. "He doesn't get what you're saying."

Snapping the visor shut, Daisuke flatly said, "I was going to overdose."

Takeru's eyes closed. "Why?"

"Because shit sucks, all right? I ran out of ideas," Daisuke's voice took on a tone of weariness, like this was something he'd explained time and time again.

"But why?"

"That isn't important, okay? You just need to know that in the process of my second deal, there was a bit of a... okay, I'll have to back it up again and tell you what I've found out.

"Basically there are two major drug gangs in this area. The Byen-cho and the Kaze. Kaze is big on drugs, but they usually send an agent over to buy it from the Byen-cho and then up the price. But since they've bought it all out from Byen-cho, people gotta go to them. They get paid well, buy some more, process starts again.

"Byen-cho didn't notice this 'til they realized they didn't have that many customers. It's a pretty big city, you know? So they start prying. They find out what's up. They get pissed. They want money, dammit, that's their shit, they should be getting paid that much.

"So they start upping the price on their own, thinking it'll cut Kaze down. Wrong-o, Kaze ups their prices too. Now when you want your shit, you'll pay whatever for it. So these prices aren't the deal – it's the friction between the two. You follow?" Daisuke reached up and snapped down the visor.

"I think so. Byen-cho is getting stolen from by Kaze and they're mad?"

"Bingo. See, Kaze doesn't enjoy the task of having to raise their prices much. It's a touch annoying and they're starting to lose a bit of profit. So they start trying to haggle through to Byen-cho.

"Doesn't work. Enter shoot out number one. This kid, Maioh, gets killed in the process, not to mention a few others. But this Maioh kid is the son of one of Kaze's big shits, Osaruka, so this is obviously a problem.

"Two weeks later, Byen-cho ups its prices again. Shoot out number two. Shoot out three and four follow up, more of the fancies getting offed... Very complicated," Daisuke tossed his cigarette out the window. "Now we get to the real problem, though. Osaruka had two sons – Maioh and kid goes by the name of Bass. Bass suddenly disappears."

"Kidnapped?"

"Ding ding ding. Give the boy a prize." Daisuke stopped talking to reach over and touch Taichi on the arm. The older boys grip had tightened on the wheel at the mention of the word 'kidnapped,' at he hardly relaxed at the touch. "We'll get her," the boy sitting shotgun mumbled.

"Can't Byen-cho just stop selling to Kaze?" Takeru interrupted from the backseat.

"How're you gonna tell a druggie from an agent?" Daisuke peered up at Takeru through the mirror. "You can't."

"Oh."

"Anyway. You get the basic deal of what's going on. Kaze wants the kid back. Problem is... Byen-cho thinks I'm in on Kaze's side. I was getting my shit at shooting number... uhh... six or seven, I'd have to recount. Anyway, they think I'm part of it. And Byen-cho... I know where Bass is."

"Can't you just tell Kaze, then?"

Daisuke rolled his eyes a bit, annoyed at the constant questions. "No, because then I'd technically _be_ in Kaze. And shit, I don't want to be in a gang. I just wanted a hit of ecstasy. Thing is, I liked Bass. I knew him. I met him at the skatepark. He's not in with the Kaze and his dad likes it that way – but now I'm pissed because Byen-cho went fucking with my friend who wasn't even part of this. So I find out where Bass is."

"How'd you do that?"

Grumbling, Daisuke shoved frustration aside. "Byen-cho is high-tech. Lots of computer files."

"You hacked them?" a brief memory of the laptop sitting in front of Daisuke stirred in Takeru's mind.

"YES. I hacked them! God, stop asking so many damn questions!" Rubbing his temples again, the red-haired boy continued. "I hacked them and found out where Bass is. Except, since they're high-tech, they caught me. I thought I'd covered my tracks but I didn't. So now not only am I on Kaze, I'm a hacker. Whee."

Taichi chuckled slightly. Takeru didn't see what was so funny, but he didn't say a thing.

"Anyway. If you wanted to know who was shooting at me, it was Byen-cho. They think I'm one of Kaze's top agents or something. Their plan is that killing me will tick off Osaruka even more and provoke an all out brawl, one that'll end the whole thing. Except it won't, because Osaruka doesn't even know I exist.

"The problem was, before you and Hikari got involved, ripping Bass out of their security and returning him to Kaze unharmed. Except if I did that, option a, Byen-cho would catch me and kill me, or option b, Kaze would think I was Byen-cho and kill me."

"Geez." Takeru regretted opening his mouth as he caught Daisuke's glare in the mirror.

"Now it's an even bigger problem because I _have_ to get out Hikari... which means getting out Bass, too. Two people at a time. I'll be caught no way. Dammit," he leaned back, slamming his head into the chair. "Ow."

Taichi sighed, pulling into a parking garage. "We'll figure something out. We have to."

"I'm still confused. Why did you have to get Bass out?"

"Because, Takeru. He's my friend." Takeru sighed a bit. "It was originally a very easy operation... it's gotten complicated very fast."

"No kidding," the blonde sighed again.

"Get out. We're here. Up to Yamato's, we'll figure this out." Taichi touched a light green car next to his as they climbed out. "Looks like Koushiro is already here."

"Good. We need everybody to figure this shit out."


	5. 5

Takeru shuffled his feet under the desk and stared blurrily at the worksheet in front of him. He could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone work. Rubbing a hand across his eyes, he glanced at Daisuke next to him.

The darker boy was leaning his chin in his hand and idly making marks on the paper. Prior to the worksheet being handed out, he'd been passed out on his desk, so fast asleep he'd almost been snoring. Just the same as he had been during first hour.

Sighing, the blonde glanced out the window. For the last three days, the five guys had been staying up late and working to try and form a plan to get into the Byen-cho headquarters. The previous night, they'd stayed at Yamato's until 3 in the morning, and Takeru didn't get back home until quarter to 4. He had to sneak in, something he'd never done before he'd gotten into the whole mess. And here he was, sitting in his last hour class and trying not to pass out.

He idly reminded himself how badly he'd worked to get into the deal in the first place. He moaned quietly. It was amazing how much could happen in one week.

There were girls whispering and gossiping a few aisles up, and Takeru listened idly. Most of the things they were talking about were petty – some girl who had chipped nail polish on, some haircut that was awful, that sort of thing. After a while of listening, the conversation took a different turn.

"Did you hear about that Hikari girl?"

Daisuke's head snapped up from the worksheet.

"Yeah, she just went totally missing! No one even, like, has a clue about where she is."

Something to Takeru's right cracked, and he glanced over. Daisuke had broken the pencil in his hand. Giving a quiet grunt of frustration he tossed the pencil aside and put his head down on the desk.

Takeru sighed again. He'd been doing a lot of that recently. The bell rang a second later and he stood wearily. Idly, he waited as Daisuke grumbled and shoved things into his bag, then headed stormily out of the classroom. The blonde followed. "Are you going straight to Taichi's?"

"Yes," Daisuke nodded, dodging around other students as the two made their way down the hall. "Part of me wants to go home and take a nap and eat first, but I don't have time. I also wouldn't mind doing _that,_" the darker boy pointed across the street to the soccer field. "They're gonna play against Odaiba Unity. I _was_ invited to scrimmage with them before the game but... well, that's just out of the question now. Man, have you heard the gossip flying around about Hikari these last few days?"

"Yeah," Takeru sighed a bit, mentally smacking himself for sighing.

"Is it _always_ like this here? Constant gossip out the ass?"

The blonde laughed once, a short, unamused laugh. "Yes. Sadly, yes. I sort of... used to be part of it, too. But now it just really really annoys me. People don't know the beginning of it all and yet they're just running their mouths. God." He blinked. "What?"

Daisuke was staring at him, one eyebrow raised. "Hey hey. You are human after all. I'm fucking amazed."

"Oh, hell," Takeru groaned and rolled his eyes.

The red-haired boy grinned brightly, then stopped and watched the soccer team start to play around a bit. He locked his fingers into the links of the fence and made a face. "Man I wish I was out there."

"Like soccer?"

"Yeah. It's the only sport where you get to kick the shit out of something and you don't get penalized for it."

Takeru laughed quietly, then turned to listen in on a conversation two kids were having.

"Have you seen that kid from Unity, the one with the blue hair?"

"That's Ichijouji Ken. He's really really good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! He's the best player I've ever seen and he's only 16!"

Takeru searched his mind. Ichijouji Ken. Ichijouji Ken. The name was so familiar. Why? "Ah-ha... Hikari."

Daisuke turned towards the blonde at the name. "What?"

"My friends said that Hikari used to hang out with Ichijouji Ken. I knew the name was familiar."

Raising one eyebrow, the red-haired boy glanced back out on the field. _Used to hang out with Hikari, huh._ He shook his head, then shoved away from the fence. "Come on, let's hop a train to Taichi's. I don't feel much like walking."

Sitting sprawled around Taichi's apartment, the five were all silent and lostin thought. The only noise was the quiet ticking of the wall clock and Koushiro idle tapping of laptop keys.

Finally, Takeru cleared his throat and interrupted the silence. "How come we don't just break in? We know where the building is, don't we?"

"Yes, but we don't know _how_ to break in," Yamato grimaced. "We'll be able to get in as soon as we figure out what kind of a security system they're housing."

"The problem is that we can't find that out unless we break into their system again. Which we can't do because that would risk further provoking them into violence. Daisuke got caught the last time, remember?" Koushiro looked up from his laptop for a moment.

Daisuke looked up and spoke for the first time since he'd gotten on the subway with Takeru. "Koush, get me everything you can on Ichijouji Ken."

"Says here he's one of the smartest kids in Japan. He won the all-city, but for some reason he pulled out of going to the country finals. He would have won, too, look at this IQ."

"_Rumored_ IQ," Daisuke added flatly, tapping a word on the screen.

"Don't touch the monitor," Koushiro scrolled down the page. "Says he has an older brother... er, had. He was killed. Car accident."

"Parents?"

"Doesn't mention them much... they admire his intelligence. That's about it."

Daisuke leaned away from the monitor and plopped his chin in his hand thoughtfully. "They must not be very involved in his life," he mumbled.

"What makes you say that?" Yamato asked, eyes never leaving the screen.

"Parents are really important in the life of a kid his age. The fact that the biography doesn't mention them implies that not much is known about them – thusly we can deduce they're not highly involved in his life. Considering the amount of press attention and coverage the kid gets, you would think that it would mention at least _something_ about his mother and father," Koushiro answered.

"What he said," Daisuke pointed. He ran his tongue over his teeth in thought. "Koush, I need class information."

"A list of classmates?" Koushiro asked, even as he was already typing.

"Maybe. I'm thinking a list of classes taken in high school will give me what I need though."

The computer geek shook his head. "I can't do that. I'd need to hack the system of the school. I am not much of a hacker."

"Daisuke is," Takeru blurted. The other three looked up at him, then turned to the dark-skinned boy who was still eyeing the monitor thoughtfully.

"He's right. I used to do it... but I don't know. I haven't been feeling much like a hacker these past few days here."

"Why not?" Taichi grumbled impatiently.

"I don't know."

"He's missing the goggles," Takeru smirked. Daisuke smirked back, but before he could snap out a response Taichi hopped to his feet, rummaged around in his bedroom for a few seconds, then flung something out at Daisuke's head.

"Ouch!" the red-haired boy yelped, catching whatever it was that hit him and rubbing the back of his head. "Geez, always abusing me..." He glanced down to examine what it was that had bruised his head and his ego.

It was a pair of swimming goggles. Round blue lenses held together by a black strap. "There. Goggles. Now you can be a hacker. Sit. Hack," Taichi commanded.

Daisuke rolled his eyes to himself, shaking his head and eyeing the goggles some more. "I don't think it's the... hmm." He glanced up again, tossing the goggles from one hand to the other and studied the four faces all watching him in silent question. "Oh, the hell with it. I can do it. Move over, Koushiro."

The next several minutes crept by slowly as Daisuke, goggles slung around his neck, flipped around the Unity school system until he found a backdoor. "Bingo," he mumbled to himself. "Okay. Password. We have to come up with the password."

"Try unity?" Koushiro guessed.

"Nope."

"Odaiba," Yamato prompted.

"Hmm... nope."

"Central," Takeru said.

Daisuke shrugged and tapped it in, then glanced up at the blonde. "We're in."

"Ha! Oh, go me," he grinned.

"How'd you know that?" Taichi blinked.

"I just guessed. Odaiba Central and Odaiba Unity are rival schools. It was worth a shot."

"Hell yes it was worth a shot," Daisuke shook his head in disbelief.

"Dais, look for a student directory," Koushiro brought the subject back to the important matter at hand.

A few clicks later, Daisuke was mumbling names under his breath as he scrolled down a list of students. "Kaori... Kyaku... Idori... no, before Idori..."

"There," Yamato pointed.

"Don't touch the monitor," Koushiro said again.

"Bingo." Daisuke reached down and snapped Taichi's goggles up over his eyes. "Okay, we'll start with freshman year and go on from there."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Takeru asked.

"I'm not sure. I'll know it when I see it." The room was silent as all five scanned the first and second semester class lists for Ken's freshman year. "Damn," Daisuke finally muttered, then moved on to sophomore year. He idly scrolled through first semester, then stopped and scrolled back up. "Wait, wait. This is it," he tapped the screen.  
"Don't touch the goddamn monitor!" Koushiro yelped.

"Computer programming?" Taichi tilted his head to the side.

"Yeap. Here we go, a list of fellow students in the same class. Whoo, grades too.

"Damn, look," Yamato pointed. "Ichijouji got a 107."

"Damn. Even _I_ couldn't pull that. And... oh, forget it. Touch the monitor all you want."

"Koushiro, I need you to cross-reference this list with all known Byen-cho members," Daisuke looked up.

"All right. It'll take a while."

Daisuke stood up and stretched. "Save a copy of the list to disk. We can't stay in their system for a long time."

"Why computer programming?" Yamato leaned back on the couch.

"Byen-cho is high tech, remember?"

"Ahh," the older blonde nodded. "So you think he got bribed in because of his skills."

"Yeah, or at least something like that," Daisuke pulled the goggles from his eyes and settled them on his forehead. "I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I think he somehow got linked into it through that class."

"Makes sense."

"Plus," the dark-haired boy cracked his knuckles idly, "since Ichijouji's parents aren't highly involved in his life, I can assume he'd have the spare time to mix it up."

"Dais," Koushiro turned away from the monitor. "Look at this list."

All five turned their attention back to the laptop. "Holy monkeys, what is that?"

"It's a list of known Byen-cho members," the techie made a face. "And it's long."

"Jesus Mary Joseph on a _crutch,_" Daisuke raised an eyebrow. "It's huge."

"This will take me a while," Koushiro sighed.

"In that case, no sense in us staying up all night trying to think, right?" Taichi shoved off the couch. "I propose we go home, get a good nights rest, and resume tomorrow. It's Saturday, after all. Saturday good."

"Second that motion," Yamato raised his hand. "I want to go home and pass out for the next twelve and a half hours."

"All right," Koushiro shrugged. "I guess you're right. It won't do any good for you guys to wait up for answers we might not even get until four in the morning."

"Ugh, don't say four in the morning," Daisuke moaned.

Takeru yawned, glancing at his watch. It was only a quarter past seven, but he was really tired. And hungry. He'd have to go home and fix himself a huge dinner.

"You know," Daisuke said, jerking Takeru out of his ponderings of food. He paused, then shook his head. "You know what I could _really_ go for right now? Hot tub. A nice, comfy hot tub. Just to kill all this stress." He yawned loudly. "Oh yeah."

They crossed the street and Takeru bit his lip. "They have one by the gym. Of my apartment building."

"Oh yeah?"

"I can get you in."

Daisuke smirked slightly. "How much d'ya want?"

"Huh? Oh, no, that's not it. It's no problem, really."

Narrowing one eye in suspicion, Daisuke raised one eyebrow. "If this is your secret plot to buddy up to me..."

"It's not! I swear! Just being nice and all."

Daisuke sunk down in the hot water, leaning back against the wall of the hot tub. "Oh, yes. This is awesome." He opened one eye and studied Takeru. "What's your problem? Don't tell me you don't know how to relax."

Takeru shifted uneasily on the edge of the hot tub, studying the water around his ankles. "No, that's not it."

Yawning, the other boy shrugged and settled in again. "You have no idea how good this feels. We had one of these puppies back home. If there's one thing I remember, that would be it. After a long game I'd come home and just let all the stress melt away. Oh yeah."

"Geez, don't cum in the water or anything."

"Ha!" Daisuke opened one eye and grinned. "You _do_ have a sense of humor! Fucking amazed again! I'd guess you wouldn't know what it's like to be homesick anyway."

Takeru finally got up the nerve to slide into the water. "Oh, come on. Homesick?"

"Like you wouldn't believe. It's a completely different world out here." Daisuke yawned again and ran his hands through his hair.

"Osaka can't be _that_ different from Odaiba."

He gave a snort of disbelief. "You'd be surprised."

"You're not from Osaka, are you?"

Dark brown eyes snapped open and focused on the blonde. He studied him for a long moment, before finally raising one eyebrow. "No."

"I knew it!" Takeru slapped the water with a hand in triumph. "I so knew it."

"So how'd you guess? I know it isn't that obvious."

"No," the blonde admitted, sinking back into the water. "The first thing that gave it away was the fact that you speak with an accent. Osaka has an accent and a dialect and all that, but you don't. You talk wrong. You talk like someone from Tokyo. And I know because I've been to Tokyo. But you're not from Tokyo either because your accent is wrong."

"Impressive."

"Plus you've slipped up twice about where you're from, and Yamato laughed when I told him you were from Osaka."

"I slipped up?"

"Just now, when you said that you had a hot tub back home."

Daisuke grinned slightly. "I didn't even catch that one myself."

"And there was one other time. When we were talking about the weather and you said it was always hot." Takeru paused, then pressed forward. "So where are you _really_ from?"

"L.A."

"L.A? As in... Los Angeles?"

"Yup."

"As in Los Angeles, California?"

"Yup."

"As in Los Angeles, California, _USA?_"

Daisuke opened one eye, then shut it again. "Yup."

Takeru blinked several times, shaking his head. "Whoa, okay. So you're from the US. Uh. How'd you get here? How do you... what the hell?!"

The red haired boy rolled his eyes and smirked, "See, this is why I told everyone I came from Osaka."

"I don't get it."

"I'll back up for you." Daisuke hefted himself out of the hot tub and sat on the edge, goggles still slung around his neck. "I'll start with my parents. Mom was born in Osaka and moved to Los Angeles when she was seven or eight or something like that; I don't remember the age. Dad is half-German and half-Japanese. Well, mainly anyway, we're kinda mutts. But anyway, that's not the point. The point is that half-German Motomiya dad had a job in Los Angeles and he met my mom, la la la, they had my sister and me, so on and so forth... and about two months ago my dad had his job transferred here because Mom wanted to move back to the good old country of... whatever Japan is famous for. And that's about it." He dropped himself back into the water and shut his eyes once more.

"I still don't get it."

"God dammit!" Daisuke swept his arm in front of him and splashed Takeru.

The blonde, dripping with warm water, laughed. "Okay, okay! I get it, really! Well, not completely, but I got the most important part. So why did you tell everyone you were from Osaka?"

"People don't exactly like Americans here."

"Oh."

Daisuke stretched, then shifted in the hot tab. "So, Takeru. What's _your_ deal?"

"Huh?"

"Your deal. Your story. Tell me about yourself."

"Oh. Um... I have an older brother but... you knew that already... Um, I live alone with my mom... parents are divorced but you knew that too..."

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why are your parents divorced?"

"Uh, I don't really know. Fighting, I think. I was too young when they divorced, you'd have to ask Yamato."

"You never asked?"

"For the story? No." Takeru drew a circle in the water and traced it over and over again.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I guess I just never wanted to know. Part of me... it sounds stupid and all but part of me keeps hoping that someday, they'll get over whatever it was and get back together again. And we'll be some happy little family all over again." Takeru looked up from the water circle and narrowed his eyes as Daisuke. "I never told anybody that before. Don't go blabbing it around to everyone."

"Eh. I won't. Besides, it's really not all it's cracked up to be."

"huh?"

"The Perfect Family." Daisuke rolled his eyes and shoved his goggles up onto his forehead. "There's me, my mom, my dad, and my sister. That's the perfect family in all the sitcoms and shit, right? WRONG," he cut off Takeru in the middle of his 'yes' answer. "To begin with, my sister takes precedence over everything. It's _Jun_ this, _Jun_ that, Jun Jun Jun. That's her name, Jun," he added, as if it weren't completely obvious. "Why can't you be more like _Jun,_ get the grades _Jun_ did, _Jun_ did this, _Jun_ did that, oh fuck me if I even _cared,_" Daisuke threw his hands into the air. "Screw that. I exist too, you know? And then there's my dad. My Lord does he bitch. _Everything_ is wrong with him. My hair, my clothes, my _shoes,_ my room, my music, my grades, my friends, goddamn, you name it and he can't handle it. My mom... geez, she's nice enough and all, really, except when my dad is around she turns into a little mouse. She'll sit back and watch him slap me around, and then afterwards she tries to clean up the blood and make it all okay. 'Oh, he didn't _mean_ it,' she says, 'he had a bad day at _work_,' she says. Which of course makes the whole fucking thing all right, yeah? Fuck that. Fuck the whole lot of it. Perfect family my ass. It's bullshit is what it is."

The red-haired boy sighed and sunk into the water, shutting his eyes. "I'm hungry," he stated, changing the subject entirely.

Takeru blinked quietly and bit the inside of his mouth. "Want to come up to my apartment? Food and all."

"Your mom won't mind?"

"Nah. She's at work right now anyways. I'm supposed to stay at Yamato's for dinner on Friday's but... well, you already know that part of the day, you were there. He was too tired to mess with that." Takeru pulled himself up and out of the hot tub. "So, come on. Food."

"Food works."


	6. 6

Takeru hummed quietly as he stirred the... whatever it was... noodle thing. He'd found it in the cabinet and it looked edible, so he was fixing it. If he could make it and digest it, there wasn't a problem. He glanced up and eyed Daisuke, who was sitting on the arm of the couch in the living room, staring out the balcony window. Wearing Takeru's clothes.

Almost as if he felt Takeru watching him, Daisuke twisted and made a face at him. "God, your pants are riding my ass like hell." He got up and squirmed. "Got a belt or something?"

"Yeah, hanging on the right of my closet. Help yourself."

Daisuke headed into Takeru's bedroom, unbuttoning the pants and sagging them down on his waist. "Geez," he mumbled, pulling the insane wedgie out of his ass and nudging open the closet with his foot. Making disapproving noises under his breath as he flipped through Takeru's closet, he eyed the disgusting lack of variety. He paused to grab a belt and settled the pants a few inches lower than they really should have been, then continued prowling around the bedroom.

The boy paused at a shelf with a stack of CDs on it and flipped through them. "Ugh, ugh, ugh, that's not bad, ugh, oh my GOD I didn't know ANYONE owned one of these anymore... ugh, ugh, ugh... Terrible taste in music." He dropped the CDs back on the shelf and continued his exploration.

Basketball, tennis shoes, dirty clothes... the normal teenage jock stuff... He glanced for a bookcase and found none. "Not surprising..." The closest thing to a bookshelf was a desk covered with papers.

Swiping a few and sitting on the bed – which was made neatly, Daisuke noted with disgust – he flipped through them. The typical notes made in classes... nothing juicy. "God!" Shoving the papers back down on the desk he glanced around the room once more, then flounced out into the kitchen. Crossing his arms and glaring at Takeru, he snarled, "How come you don't have anything bribe-worthy in your room? Not even a juicy note from a girlfriend. Are you _that_ boring?"

Takeru raised one eyebrow. "Is that what you were doing in there? I don't even have a girlfriend."

"No?" Daisuke hopped up on the counter and made a face at Takeru. "And why not? Any particular reason?"

"No, not really, just haven't found the right girl yet."

"Liar. You can't get any, can you?"

The door opened before Takeru could respond and both boys looked up. Daisuke slid off the counter abruptly and Takeru smiled halfheartedly at his mom. "Uh, hey mom. Home early?"

"Only to get some papers I forgot... who's this?"

"Um... this is Motomiya Daisuke. He goes to school with me. I hope it's okay he's here, I didn't think you'd be home so soon."

"It's fine, just don't cause any trouble." Mrs. Takaishi smiled at Daisuke. "He looks much nicer than most of your other friends," she noted to Takeru before heading out of the room.

Daisuke smiled brightly at Takeru. "I like your mom, she's smart!"

"Shut up," the blonde groaned. "I mean, not that she isn't smart. Just... oh, shut up."

The darker boy grinned and leaned back on the counter. "I'm hungry, how much longer?"

"Only a few minutes."

Mrs. Takaishi passed back through the kitchen with a folder in her arms. "Okay, hopefully I have everything I need now... hmm." She blinked and studied Daisuke for a moment, then asked, "Why are you wearing Takeru's clothes?"

"We went swimming," Daisuke explained before Takeru could say anything. "And I didn't have anything to change into."

She nodded and smiled again, "Much nicer... much." She turned towards her son and tilted an eyebrow in a half-stern expression. "Wash your dishes when you're done, don't make too much of a mess, and don't stay up too late. I'll be home early tomorrow morning. Nice to meet you, Daisuke," she nodded her head at the red-haired boy and hurried back out the door.

Turning a grin on Takeru, Daisuke raised one eyebrow. "You do know why she asked why I was wearing your clothes, don't you?"

Blinking, the blonde shook his head. He stared at the other for a moment before comprehending the sleazy grin and groaned. "Oh you dirty... What does my mom know anyway? She said she thought you looked _nice._"

"I am nice," he blinked innocently.

"No, you're an asshole." Taking the pan off the stove, Takeru shook his head again and poured the noodles into two bowls. He was well aware of the fact that he was currently blushing, for some _wild_ reason, and was attempting to hide it. He was also well aware of the fact that _Daisuke_ knew he was blushing and found great amusement in it. So he silently shoved the bowl at Daisuke, flouncing into the living room and turned on the TV.

Daisuke followed and sat down on the couch next to him. "You know, I only mess with you because it's so easy. You have to start fighting back or I'll just... well actually I'll probably get bored and then I'll stop talking to you all together. But that's not the point. I hate this show; change the station."

"I hate it too." Takeru changed the channel and sighed. "There's nothing on."

"Oh well. Turn it off and we'll talk."

"Talk about what?"

"Anything!" Daisuke gave him a look. "We don't need a direction to have a conversation! Just talk to me, c'mon."

"Okay... your parents."

"Not that."

"Yeah, I want to talk about that."

Daisuke shot the blonde a warning glance. "I don't. So stop, I'm not going to talk about it."

"Is that why you tried to overdose?"

"Shut the fuck up, Takeru. I said I'm not going to talk about it."

"I want to know." Daisuke shut his mouth and shook his head once. Instead of arguing, he would just shut Takeru out. The blonde made a disapproving noise and poked at his dinner. "I still don't understand how things could be so bad that-"

"What time did the game start?"

The blonde blinked. "The game? Oh. The soccer game? Home games usually start at 4:30."

"4:30... an hour and a half... plus fifteen minutes for halftime... Game would be over around 6:30. What time is it?"

Takeru peered at his watch. "8:27."

"Dammit. Where's this Ichijouji live again? Tamachi, right?" Daisuke shoved to his feet. "Where's your phone book?"

"Kitchen, third draw from the fridge. Why?" The blonde stood up and followed.

"Because." Daisuke tapped his fingers along the drawers, counting. "Three." He slid it open and pulled out the phonebook, dropping it on the counter and flipping through it. "How far is Tamachi from here?"

"I don't know... if I had to guess, made a half hour?" Takeru leaned against the wall and watched the other run his finger down the page, flip it, then scan for a bit longer before he found what he was looking for. "Why?" he asked again.

"Half an hour by train? Where's the closest station?" Flipping to the front of the book, the darker boy glanced through some city maps before finding the one he wanted. "Got a pen?" he looked up from the book.

The other blinked. "Yeah, half an hour by train. Pen, um..." Fishing around in one of the drawers, Takeru produced one and handed it over. "The closest station is about three minutes from here, I'd guess."

Scribbling an address and a phone number down on the page of the map, Daisuke glanced up at the blonde. Ripping the page out of the book, he shrugged, "Look, Takeru. I'm not gonna drag you along on this if you don't want to go, but if you agree to come with me you'd better not cause any problems."

"I won't. Where are we going?"

Closing the phone book and putting it back in the drawer, the redhaired boy held the torn out map up to Takeru. "Ichijouji. We could wait until tomorrow for Koushiro and everyone else, or we could just take matters into our own hands."

"Are you sure that would be a good idea? Yamato and Taichi..."

"Yamato and Taichi don't have to know about it unless it turns out okay. Understand?" Daisuke narrowed one eye. "See, here's my plan. I don't have one. So are you coming?"

"Wait, you don't have a plan?" Takeru blinked and followed Daisuke on his way back to his bedroom. "I'm confused."

"Do you happen to have any hats? The only plan I have is to go and kidnap Ichijouji Ken and squeeze information out of him. Scare him so bad that if he talks he'll be convinced we'll hunt him down again and axe him. Great plan, huh? Do you have any hats?"

Groaning under his breath, the blonde opened his closet and fished around on the top shelf. "Here," he handed one to Daisuke, fished around again for a minute, and then pulled out another. "I don't think I have any more."

"No big deal, we only need two." Daisuke looked over the baseball hat, adjusted the strap, then plopped it on his head and glanced at himself in the mirror. "Hmm." He pulled it off and put it back on backwards. He yanked it off once more, shrugging with either slight satisfaction or lack or caring, and turned around to eye Takeru. "So. Are you coming? This won't be easy. I'll remind you that being with me is like a death curse when you're on the streets. Do you have a jacket?"

Sighing and turning back to the closet, Takeru pulled out a jacket and then a zip-up hoodie. "This is the closest I can get. Everything else I own is..."

"Ugly?" Daisuke finished the sentence and tossed the jacket back to him. "You wear that. Suits your style a little better. Coming?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's go."

Takeru turned off the light in his room and followed Daisuke, still rather confused but encouraged by the idea that he'd just been invited along to go on a little mission alone with Daisuke. He wasn't lying when he said there was no plan to buddy up with him, but honestly it wasn't like Takeru would _mind_ being friends with him...

Daisuke hummed to himself the entire time the two sat on the train. Takeru, sitting next to him, was busy staring around the rest of the car. He noticed that every time he'd look to the left, there was a guy in a red shirt staring back. There was also a girl on the right that was checking out Daisuke and trying to be flirtatious, except he was too involved in his own thoughts and humming to notice. Glancing to the left again, the red shirt guy was still watching. He caught Takeru's eye and turned away.

The blonde blinked, watching for another moment before fishing in the pockets of his jacket and finding a pen that was nearly out of ink and an old receipt from some store or another. He scribbled on it 'red shirt watching us?' and, casting his glance around the car again, discreetly tilted the paper towards Daisuke.

The humming stopped for a moment, then started up again as the darker boy ripped the paper out of his hand and crumpled it up. "Just relax," he hummed under his breath. "Stop soon."

"Not Tamachi," Takeru muttered back.

"Doesn't matter."

The train pulled to a stop a few minutes later and the two boys stood up in unison. Daisuke reached under the hoodie and pulled the hat out of his pocket. "Get your hat on as soon as we get out the doors," he muttered to the blonde. He put the hat on facing frontwards and didn't glance back once as he tugged the other outside. They paused briefly near the doors as Takeru pulled on his white floppy hat and then headed down the long stretch of the subway.

"Don't look back," Daisuke instructed, grabbing Takeru's sleeve and half-dragging him along the platform. They'd only gone a little ways before the redhaired boy jerked him up a stairway. He stopped to turn the hat around backwards on his head, then pulled off the hoodie and handed it to Takeru. "Put this on over your jacket. Give me the hat. Put the hood up. Let's go." Claiming his sleeve again, Daisuke jerked the blonde through a mass of people, weaving his way down the stairs again.

Takeru followed (not like he had a choice) and tried not to glance around nervously. He chewed his lip and focused on not losing track of the other as they worked their way back down the platform. Daisuke led him through the right doors of another train car, out the left doors, down two cars, and shoved him through the left doors. "Sit," he commanded, pulling off his hat and switching it for the white floppy one Takeru had handed him. He sat down in front of the windows, several seats away from the blonde, and ignored the fact that a few people were staring.

Sitting tensely, Takeru did anything besides watch the doors. He picked at the sweatshirt, turned his ticket over in his hands, untied and retied his shoes... Finally, the train started again, and he let out a breath after an inspection of the passengers proved that Red Shirt hadn't followed them.

Daisuke wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and moved to sit down next to Takeru. He handed him the white hat and waited for Takeru to give him back the hoodie. Pulling it on, he sighed a bit. "Well, _that_ was fun."

"What _was_ all that?"

"A very simple way of avoiding our trailing friend. We switched outfits three times to make it hard for him to recognize us, and the crowd made it difficult to keep track. Looks like we're safe for now," Daisuke glanced around the car, then pulled the hat on backwards again. Tossing a gaze at Takeru, he smirked. "You look like Gilligan in that thing."

"You wore it, too."

Daisuke rolled his eyes and settled back against the wall of the car, humming to himself again and shutting his eyes for the rest of the trip.

Takeru yawned and stretched, peering around the city streets. "I hope you know where we're headed, because I sure don't."

"That's what this is for," Daisuke pulled the map he'd torn from the phonebook out of his pocket. "Find me a street sign and tell me where we are." He trailed his finger along the page until he found the street name in the address he'd scribbled at the top of the paper. He glanced up as Takeru wandered down the street to a pole.

The blonde pointed up. "Aichi."

"Aichi... hmm." Glancing over the map, Daisuke found their street and then started tracing a path towards his other finger. "Okay. C'mon."

"What are we looking for?" Takeru followed obediently, trying to peer over Daisuke's shoulder to read the map. "Ukyo?"

"Yeah, it's only a few blocks from here. What time is it now?"

"9:04," Takeru glanced at his watch in the light of a streetlamp. He sighed and glanced around nervously. "My mom would kill me if she found out I was here."

"She won't find out," Daisuke shrugged slightly. "Oh, by the way, what time do you have to be home by?"

The blonde made a face. "Shouldn't you have asked that before we even left? Not until late. Mom probably won't be home until 2."

"I hope Koush doesn't decide to call us all randomly... he'll get suspicious when he realizes you and I are both gone. Taichi would figure it out..." Daisuke stopped and glanced at a street sign, then turned a corner and kept walking.

"How do you know Taichi?" Takeru asked, unconsciously lowering his voice.

"Through Koushiro. Same as your brother. Taichi sort of... clicked with me, though. Not like Koush or Yamato did. He says I remind him of... well, himself. When he was younger. It's sort of nice to see that I won't be completely fucked up when I'm older..." the redhaired boy bit his lip and eyed the map. "Okay, the apartment building is two blocks from here. Now would be a good time to figure out what we want to do."

"We're both obviously school-aged. Something that would have to do with school."

"Okay, we have a rhetoric project where we have to interview someone. And we picked Ken... why?"

"Because we were watching television when we were trying to pick our person and they ran a story on him?" Takeru shrugged.

"Convenience. Works perfectly considering I look like a lazy slob," Daisuke folded the map and shoved it in his pockets. "We're heading to apartment 816, okay? Remember that. And we're taking the stairs."

Sighing, Takeru nodded. "Stairs, right."

On the way up the stairs, Daisuke paused. "Wait, I forgot something. Hat. Put your hat on." The blonde plopped the white hat on his head. Daisuke yanked it down farther so it covered most of his eyes, then tilted his own hat forward so that it shaded his own eyes. "Come on."

Daisuke glanced around the Ichijouji apartment without actually looking like he was scooping it out. His parents had both gone to bed a while ago... time? 10:47, he could barely read Takeru's watch from the angle he was at. The entire time they'd been here, Takeru had been making up questions. He'd repeated some a few times, and he could tell their time was running out before Ken caught on.

Ken, who was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room – Daisuke and Takeru were on a couch – looked like a perfectly normal kid. Not too geeky, not too... well, not too anything, actually. He had a sort of bland appearance. No flaws on this kid, no sir, not even in his indigo hair. It was cut at a sharp angle, almost like it was done with a ruler, and every strand fell straight and in place.

Daisuke blinked and realized he'd been caught staring as Ken fixed him with curious, cold eyes. He coughed and stood up, jerking his thumb at Takeru to do the same. "Wow, it's getting late. Hey, Ichijouji, thank you _so_ much. You've really helped us out here. Homework is a bitch, eh?"

Ken nodded slightly, raising one eyebrow. 'Fuck, he's onto us, he has to be,' the redhaired boy managed an innocent smile.

"Mind showing us to the door?" Takeru said what Daisuke was thinking but didn't dare to push.

"You can't find your own way?" the eyebrow fell back into place in a straight line over his eyes.

_Bland! Bland! Holy fucking WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE TO MESS UP YOUR HAIR_... Daisuke's right eye twitched slightly, the only indication of his annoyance. "Takeru feels it's rude to walk through someone's house without an escort," he shrugged slightly, turning to avoid screaming in agony at the perfection.

Takeru made a muffled squeak of protest that he turned into a nervous laugh.

Perfect Ken sighed in slight exasperation. He was slightly tense – nervous and tipped off by the awkwardness of the situation, Daisuke guessed. Mentally, he cursed himself for rushing in without a plan and knew that if Taichi found out about this he'd cuss him out even worse. He groaned at the thought as the two followed Ken towards the door, and the indigo haired boy glanced over his shoulder at him in question. "Uh, just thinking about all the work this project is requiring. I'm okay," he shrugged a bit.

"What?" Takeru whispered.

"I'll explain later," Daisuke shook his head.

Blowing out an exasperated breath, Ken unlocked the apartment door and shoved it open. "There you go! I have _walked_ you to the door! Do you have any more questions or requests?"

The blonde started to open his mouth but Daisuke jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow to shut him up. He buckled over and winced, making a squeak of pain even though it wasn't that hard of a jab. He heard a sharp thud and jerked his head up, blinking.

Rubbing his fist innocently, Daisuke stood over a now unconscious Ken Ichijouji. "Hmm. He may have been perfect but he was one hell of a wuss. I didn't even hit that hard."

"What the hell was that elbow for?" Takeru growled out.

"Sorry. I didn't actually _mean_ to hit you. There's just not much room in this foyer and I was trying to get momentum for the punch. Damn, it wasn't that hard, was it?" the darker boy blinked at the other as he hefted the limp Ichijouji up.

"No, but it still hurt," he complained. "What're we gonna do, just walk out of here with him?"

"Sort of. Look in the drawer of that table there. Find me some paper." Shifting the unconscious Perfect in his arms, Daisuke tilted his head at a table against the wall.

Shrugging, Takeru opened the drawer and sifted through it before he came up with a pad of notepaper. "Will this work?"

"That's perfect. Got a pen?"

"Mine's dead. Wait, I have one now," Takeru pulled a pen from the drawer.

"Write a note to his parents saying we all went out for ice cream and leave it there. We probably won't need it – it's just in case. Let's hope he isn't lactose intolerant," he muttered under his breath and hefted the indigo haired boy up. "Get the spare key, it's hanging on the rack behind me."

Takeru, who hadn't even noticed the rack, (let alone the table, before he'd gone looking through it) glanced up from his note writing. "How do you catch all these things? You don't really seem _that_ alert." Ripping the paper off the pad, he left it on the table and grabbed the key.

"I pay attention to the little things and count on everyone else to pay attention to the rest," Daisuke explained, carrying Ken out the door. "God, he's even light. He must weigh 120 or something. Lock the door," he commanded.

Takeru did so and followed Daisuke as he lugged the boy down the balcony. He blinked when he started for the stairs and the other moved in the direction of the elevator. "Hey, I thought you always used the stairs."

"Not when I have my hands full of a perfect bitch."


	7. 7

Ken opened his eyes with a slight groan, struggling to focus. Where was he? The room was pitch black, save a few stray beams of moonlight sliding in from windows. He waited until his eyes began to adjust, and he stared at the windows. They were blocked up by something – probably boarded up. Boxes and stray metallic parts cluttered the floor by the window, but outside of that was too dark to make anything out.

"Hey, welcome back," a familiar voice greeted him to the left. He tried to whirl around to see who it was but he discovered he was tied to... something. It felt like it might have been an old, beat up chair, but he figured it was more likely that it was only serving as one. The indigo haired boy groaned, trying to make sense of things. The only logical explanation was that he was dreaming. It was too movie-esque to be real. Definitely a dream.

Two strong hands clamped down on his shoulders from behind, gripping tightly. He swallowed involuntarily. "Listen, Ichijouji. I don't want to make a problem out of this, so I'll make it nice and easy for you, okay? You do what I tell you to do ..." The voice was close to his ear and he felt the breath of whoever it was breathing down his neck. "And I won't hurt you. Okay? I don't want to cause you any _pain,_" the word was emphasized by a strong squeeze of his shoulders, "but I sure as hell will if I don't get what I want."

"Why should I answer to you?" Ken spat out, wincing at the grip on his shoulders. The hands lifted slowly and he heard footsteps circle around him. He could barely make out the figure before him make another circle and then head towards one of the windows.

Stepping half-way into the light, the figure held something up almost absently. Ken swallowed again as the moonlight glinted off the gun as its holder studied it curiously, then snapped off the safety and returned to Ken. His captor pulled something from the side and swung in around in front of him. It was another chair, turned backwards as the figure settled into it and idly tapped underneath Ken's chin with the muzzle of the gun. "Why? Good question," his captor finally said. "I think the answer would be because _I_ have the upper hand."

"Who _are_ you?" the boy squeaked out.

"Just someone who's trying to look out for their friends. You're making this too difficult for me. From now on, I ask the questions and you answer them. Understand?" A nod. "Good boy. Let's get started. Hikari Yagami. What do you know about her?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Ichijouji," the voice snarled, the gun pressing hard against his neck. "Just answer me and I'll let you go. Tell me what I want and you're gone. Now. What do you know about Hikari Yagami?"

Ken paused. "She's a friend of mine. I met her... at a speech meet."

There was a noise from his right and a quick snort of disbelief from the person in front of him. "Hikari is a cheerleader. Cheerleaders don't do speech team."

"She's not that kind of cheerleader. She's smart. I know because I saw her give a speech and it was good."

There was a pause until a voice from the right said, "He's right – Hikari is one of the smarter people at Odaiba Central."

Another grunt of skepticism, but his captor continued anyway. "So you met her at a speech meet. How?"

"She lost to me and when she congratulated me, we struck up a conversation. It went from there, I suppose."

"And that's all of your association with Hikari Yagami?"

"Yes."

"Don't lie to me."

A long pause. "She was nice. We got to be friends."

"And?"

"And that's it, we were friends. What do you _want_ me to say?"

"Are you aware of her current status?" The gun moved away and the safety clicked back on as the boy in front of him began toying with it idly. Ken tried to make out features but could only see that he was wearing a hat turned around backwards. The voice was familiar, but no one he knew wore hats like that. Unless...

"What status?" Ken edged out.

"She's held hostage by the Byen-cho. Did you know this?"

"No," the response was immediate. After a moment, he shook his head. "Yes. I knew."

"Finally we're getting somewhere." The chair edged closer and the gun dangled carelessly in one hand. "So, tell me what your involvement with Byen-cho is."

Ken bit his lip and paused. If this was a member of the Kaze, he'd be divulging secrets he shouldn't be. If this was a member of the Byen-cho, he was undergoing a test. And if he failed, he'd be killed. Even if he gave it away to the Kaze, he'd _still_ be killed if Osaruka found out. "I don't know if I should answer this," he managed.

"I know what you're thinking. I'm not on either side, kid. All I want is for you to tell me what you know so I can get my friend Hikari out of there. You want Hikari safe, don't you? After all, she _is_ your friend... isn't she?"

Whoever it was to the right shifted. Ken thought. "If you're not on either side, why can't you tell me who you are?"

The captor in front of him tilted his head to the side. "If I told you, how dramatic would that be? Besides, it's not important who I am. All you need to know is that I want answers and I want them now, and you're the only one who can give them to me. So answer me. How'd you get involved with them?"

Ken hesitated again. "It... I can't."

The safety snapped off again, its holder losing patience. "If you won't answer me, you're not going to make it out of here alive. Now answer my goddamn question."

The indigo haired boy swallowed. "I... I took a class in high school. It was a computer programming class. I was really good at it and so this kid..."

"His name."

"R-Ryen. I don't remember his other name."

"Fine. Keep going."

"Ryen said he knew people who could use my skills and that they'd pay me a lot for it. I... I didn't really need money. I wasn't interested. He said I didn't have a choice."

The figure in front of him snorted. "Of course not. It was do the job or die. So you did the job. What was it you did?"

"Lots of things," Ken shook his head. "I don't think I could even start listing them all."

"Did you program their security system?"

"Yes."

"Good. You're going to help me into break it."

"I... I can't."

"Listen. I could kill you right now." The gun tapped hard against his forehead. "I swear to whatever God you believe in I'll do it."

Ken swallowed and winced. If he agreed, Byen-cho would kill him. If he didn't agree, he'd be killed right now. "I can't do it. They'll kill me."

Silence answered him as his captor rose slowly. "You know, I didn't want to have to do this."

"D- Don't," the one on the right protested.

"Shut up," came the snarled reply.

"You _can't_ kill him. We won't get away with it, you know it!" There was a long pause. "Okay, maybe _you_ could get away with it, but_ I_ couldn't. But then again you don't care what happens to me anyway. Shit."

There was silence as the figure with the gun stared hard off to the right at the unseen person. Ken sat in the middle of the two, unable to make out the figure in front of him and not even being able to see whoever was on his right side. He was still trying to place the voices. Who had known he'd been a friend of Hikari's anyway? That had been a while ago. They hadn't talked for a long time – school got in the way. Maybe Hikari still thought they were friends, though. She always had a slightly skewed outlook on life anyway... she was weird in an overly optimistic, cute way. She made people feel comfortable no matter who they were. Which is why he'd liked her.

"If you won't let him go for our sake, remember that if you kill him and then hit the road, you won't be able to help Hikari. Or Bass," the voice on the right pled. That seemed to do the trick as a minute later the gun lifted from Ken's forehead and the other sighed slightly. "Thank you."

The voice clicked into place and Ken blinked in realization. "Takeru! Your name is Takeru, isn't it! You're that kid that came to my apartment!"

"Fuck, Takeru, you talk too much. I told you to keep your goddamn mouth shut!"

"_Someone_ has to talk some sense into you. Hell if you have any of your own."

Daisuke snarled out a response that was more of a snarl than words. Instead of continuing his argument with Takeru, he shoved one foot against Ken's chair and pushed hard, sending the boy and the chair crashing to the ground.

Ken slammed hard against the wood and a cloud of dust rose around him. He coughed once, then felt a foot press against his chest. He glared up at Daisuke. "What's to stop me from telling everyone what you're doing to me?"

"Because. We're about to make a deal." Snapping the safety back on, Daisuke tossed the gun across the room to Takeru, who apparently caught it because there was no clatter of it hitting the floor. "I want you to help me through the Byen-cho security system. All I want to do is get my friends out, do you understand? You're the only one who can break it, so I need that from you. And after you do that, I'll let you go and you forget about this completely, got it? Now let me see... what's in it for you..." Daisuke lifted his foot and strolled away from Ken, walking in a slow circle. "Now I know there was something... what was it... oh yes. I remember now." Flopping down into the dust on the floor, the red-haired boy leaned forward and grinned. "Bribery."

"Bribery? What are you bribing me with? You don't know anything about me."

Daisuke shoved his face intimately close to Ken's and grinned brightly. "I know you're gay," he whispered, then leaned back triumphantly, waiting as Ken choked out half of a response. "Imagine if everyone knew that the star player of Odaiba Unity was... ha! What a headline that would make! I bet your parents don't know, do they?"

"How?" Ken squeezed out.

"I just know. So you'll help me, right?"

Takeru shifted. "Ken, we need you. No one else can get us in to help Hikari-chan."

Ken opened his eyes. "What does Hikari have to do with drug lords anyway?"

"That's my fault," Daisuke shook his head. "It's a long story, but to make it short it's all my fault. I have to help her and you're the key to that."

"Do it yourself if it's your fault," Ken snapped dryly.  
"The hell kind of friend are you anyway?" the red-haired boy snarled and shoved to his feet. "You asshole, you'd just leave her there to be killed? They _will_ kill her, you know that, don't you? As soon as they figure out she's got nothing to do with the drug fight she'll be killed to prevent liabilities. And you'd leave her there to let that happen."

"Maybe if you had _asked_ instead of _kidnapping_ me I'd have helped!" Ken shot back.

"It's too late for that now. I can't go back and change what I did. If we'd come to you in your apartment and tried to persuade you, your parent would have overheard."

"Besides, we expected your refusal and figured we'd have to use force," Takeru added. "Don't be so stubborn, Ken. The issue here is not you, and it's not the Byen-cho and it doesn't even have to do with Daisuke or me. All we want is to get Hikari back. You have to understand that."

Daisuke turned to stare at Takeru, raising one eyebrow. Takeru didn't move to return the stare and instead focused on Ken. Ken sighed and glanced at Daisuke. "Fine."

Takeru waited for Daisuke as the latter wrote out the phone number and address of his apartment, then followed as the red-haired boy went bouncing down the stairs of Ken's apartment building. "Are you sure we can trust him? I should have thought about this ahead of time, but we just gave him your address and all... if he takes that to Byen-cho they could wipe you out in no time."

"He won't. I trust him." Daisuke hopped down the last few steps and stretched, yawning. "What time is it?"

The blonde pushed the button to light up the display on his watch. "1:27. God it's late. Didn't Taichi tell us to go get some _sleep?_"

The other nodded. "We're done now anyway. Let's hop a train and go home."

"Fine with me..." Takeru walked a few blocks next to Daisuke in silence before glancing up. "Maybe you should stay at my place tonight."

The red-haired boy flashed a grin. "You don't trust him, do you?"

"Not completely... He gave in almost too easily."

"Speaking of which, what was with that stuff you said to him? How come _you_ convinced him but I couldn't?"

"Because you were trying to force him into it where as I tried to guilt him into helping out his friend."

"I tried that too!"

"I think you're a little too rough to appeal to someone's emotional side," Takeru mused.

Daisuke narrowed one eye. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Just what it sounds like," the blonde shrugged. He was answered by silence. Too late the boy realized he'd unintentionally insulted Daisuke. It was the truth, though. He was harsh and a complete bastard. At least that's how he was when they'd first met. Takeru scowled. Maybe he was missing something. Standing there under a street light while Daisuke looked over a timetable to see when the next train back to Odaiba was, a memory sprang to mind. The night Hikari disappeared, on the trip to Yamato's apartment; there'd been an exchange between Daisuke and Taichi. It was the slightest thing in the world, just a touch on the arm, but it was like that had made things better for the moment. And all the stuff that he'd been told about his home life...

"Looks like we'll have to wait around for another ten minutes," the darker boy mumbled.

"Hey, Daisuke?" Takeru bit his lip.

Dark brown eyes glanced up, flashing with something that definitely wasn't happiness. "What?" the answer was flat and short. Just like it was when they'd first met.

The blonde sighed. So they were back at the beginning again. "I'm sorry."

"For what."

"For the stuff I said earlier, about emotions and all that."

Daisuke shrugged and headed towards the subway entrance. Takeru followed and waited for his response, knowing it would come sooner or later... most likely later. "Takeru, you don't have to apologize to me."

"Yes I do."

"No. You don't." Daisuke turned and stared at him. "You meant it, didn't you? What you said? So then why apologize?"

Blinking, Takeru tilted his head to the side. "Well... I guess I meant it... I mean, I meant it at the time I was saying it but... after I thought about it and all, I realized that I was wrong. That's why I'm apologizing – because I realized that it was a stupid, spur of the moment thing to say. So I'm sorry."

Pulling the hat off his head, the red-haired boy ran his fingers through his hair. "Just forget it."

"Why won't you let me apologize?" the other followed as they headed towards a train.

"Because you don't need to," Daisuke shrugged one shoulder.

Takeru reached out and caught him by the arm, spinning him around. "Look, when I apologize to someone I don't appreciate being blown off. Oops." He blinked and stepped back slightly, yanking his hand back from Daisuke's sleeve.

The darker boy lifted one eyebrow briefly. "We have a train to catch."

Following with a slight sigh, Takeru mumbled, "I really _am_ sorry."

The train ride back home was long, slow, and quiet. Yawning, Daisuke leaned back in the seat and shut his eyes, fully prepared to fall asleep. Takeru sighed to himself and went through the pockets of his jacket to keep himself entertained. In the right pocket, he found twenty-seven cents, an old receipt from the grocery store at the corner of his apartment, and a sucker that he didn't know how old it was. As he started pulling the wrapper off it, Daisuke opened one eye at the noise and swiped it, popping it in his mouth and raising an eyebrow at the blonde as if daring him to take it back, then shut his eyes and went back to being asleep. Digging into the other pocket, Takeru found an old wallet and went through it, looking for money. Instead he found several pictures and he idly started flipping through.

The first few pictures were of his classes in grade school. But eventually he started finding pictures of his brother, his parents, and of the family when they were all together. He stopped and studied one carefully. They all looked happy back then. Things were easy when he was a kid. And then everything turned so complicated, and here he was, being hunted down by some gang just because he walked home with the new kid a week ago. He still wasn't completely clear on how Daisuke got involved with it all, either. From what he understood it was all just a big mistake, and Takeru's own involvement wasn't far from a mistake either. That's what the whole thing was – a mistake.

"How old were you?"

Takeru jumped, jerked from his thoughts. "Huh?"

Daisuke stared at him, arching one eyebrow and pulling the sucker from his mouth to speak clearer. "I said how old were you." He tapped the picture in the blonde's hand. "When your parents got divorced."

"Oh." Leaning back in the seat, he shrugged. "Six? Maybe five. I can't remember to tell you the truth."

The other studied him carefully, sucker resting between his lips. It was a little hard to look all dark and thoughtful when you were eating a lollypop, but someone Daisuke was pulling it off. Finally he pulled the sucker out and tilted his head to the side. "Listen, about earlier. You really didn't have to apologize because honestly, you were pretty well dead on."

"No I wasn't. You're not... _that_ bad," the blonde mumbled.

Giving a short laugh, the boy ran his fingers through his hair, then fished in his pocket for the goggles Taichi had given him. "Not that bad. Look, to be perfectly honest I know I'm not easy to get along with. I shut people out and I do it on purpose. So don't take it personally, all right? I'm just a jackass and I always have been."

"You are not," Takeru rolled his eyes. "Don't even start with a self-pity act. You got along with Hikari just fine. My brother likes you. And you said yourself that you and Taichi just clicked, so you _are_ easy to get along with. It just depends on the person. As for why you don't get along with me..."

The two boys stared at each other as a minute stretched out between them. Finally, Daisuke shook his head. "I don't know why." He leaned back against the seat and sneezed once, then shut his eyes and went back to sleep.

Takeru put the picture back in the wallet and slid the wallet into his pocket, then sighed to himself just because he was addicted to sighing whenever things weren't going his way. He watched the dark subway walls fly past as the train rumbled away on the track, and once he got bored with that, he turned to watch Daisuke sleep. Why was it that he couldn't get along with him? Sometimes it seemed like everything was working out just fine, and then other times, like earlier, they'd take several flying leaps backwards from any progress they'd made towards friendship. The first week had nearly gone by since he'd promised to let Takeru tag along, and once the two weeks had ended, what happened then? He'd already been getting weird looks in the hall from some of his friends as he walked through them with Daisuke at his side. And by now, more people were paying attention to Daisuke and everyone was trying to make friends with the hot new kid. So it wasn't like Takeru was needed - not that he ever considered himself needed before. And as soon as Hikari was back, Daisuke would have someone to talk with all the time again. The blonde would find himself pushed out of the picture.

Daisuke slumped over against Takeru as the train lurched a little and twitched in his sleep, the stick of his sucker hanging dangerously from his mouth. The other boy reached over and gently removed it, tossing it across the aisle into the overflowing trash bin sitting by the door. The darker boy yawned and nuzzled against him, mumbling something. Takeru blinked a little, then glanced around the train car. The only other person was a goth girl who wasn't paying attention to them, so he didn't have to worry about a public reaction. So he leaned back and let Daisuke sleep on him, returning to watching the subway walls fly by.


	8. 8

Takeru yawned loudly as he walked down the street. "Man am I tired..."

The red-haired boy, still wearing the others clothes, gave him a sidelong glance. "You should have slept on the subway like I did."

"Yeah, yeah. Someone had to wake us up at our stop," the blonde grumbled and yawned again.

Daisuke shoved his hands into his pockets and raised one shoulder in a shrug, the two walking a few more blocks in silence. "Did your mom show up last night? I was half asleep."

"Yeah, she came in a while after we got home. Didn't say much, just told me it was too late and to get to bed." The blonde shrugged. "Why?"

"Just asking. Look, Takeru? I have to go in and get changed and all that shit, but..." He paused and turned his eyes towards the horizon. "If my parents are home, you should wait outside."

"Why?"

Making a face, Daisuke mumbled something under his breath, then gave an answer. "Just in case you got caught in the crossfire."

"Crossfire?"

"Just trust me, all right?" the other narrowed one eye.

Takeru shrugged again. "You met my mom, why can't I meet yours?"

"Because."

There was no response, but the blonde had every right mind to follow Daisuke into the apartment no matter what. The two started up the stairs and they went straight down the veranda.

The darker boy paused as he fished in his pockets for his house key. "Sounds quiet enough..." He unlocked the door and headed in, Takeru following wordlessly. They both stopped and stared over the bar to the kitchen table, where three people were sitting. Takeru assumed they were Daisuke's mother, father, and older sister.

His mother sat at the head of the table on the side closest to them and she looked traditionally Asian – her complexion, the curve of her eyes, her smooth skin – except her hair was light brown and cut short, flipping up at the bottom. She looked young, even younger than Takeru's mother, and a little tired. Glancing over Daisuke's father, sitting at the head of the table on the other side, it was obvious where he'd gotten the dark skin tone, but he wondered where the darker red hair had come from as his father had dark brown hair. Sitting on the side of the table facing the entryway was a girl who must have been early 20's with her mothers skin but red hair that was even more fiery than Daisuke's. She wore a large smirk on her face.

"Hey," Daisuke greeted. "What's Jun doing here?"

"Where were you last night?" his mother said instead of answering.

Running one hand through his hair, the boy jerked a thumb at the blonde next to him. "At his house. This is Takaishi Takeru."

"You didn't think of calling us to let us know you weren't coming home?" his father rose slightly out of his seat.

Takeru registered the half step Daisuke took backwards. "I _did_ call, but no one was home. Didn't you check the machine?"

"We never check the machine," the girl in the middle, Jun, smirked. "You know that. We never have for all 17 years you've lived with us."

Annoyance sparked between Daisuke and his sister as the boy snorted and sent back a bitter response. "Well _God,_ Jun, _I_ check the machine. That's what it's there for anyway, isn't it? What else is it here for, decoration?"

"Don't fight," Daisuke's mother sighed. "Daisuke, your sister is right. We usually don't check the machine."

Daisuke said nothing. Takeru raised an eyebrow. If he were in Daisuke's position, he'd have said something about how it wasn't his fault they weren't home when he called, which had been reasonably late and anyone who didn't work so much overtime as Daisuke said they had would have been home. But it seemed the other boy knew when it was time to shut up.

"It doesn't matter now I guess, so long as you're home," his mother decided, and his father sat back down. "Jun is here because we were worried when you didn't come home and she wanted to see if you'd be back safe soon. We were going to call the police."

"Yeah right," Daisuke breathed just enough for Takeru to hear it. "We're going out again, actually," he said out loud. "I just came home to change because I didn't have clothes last night and had to borrow some of his. And they don't fit."

Raising one eyebrow, his father smirked slightly. "Looks more like they _do_ fit, just not how you want them too."

"Do you go to school with Daisuke?" his mother asked Takeru. "What was your name again?"

"Takeru. Yeah, we go to school together. Have a few classes together."

"That's nice," she smiled. "When will you be home?" his mother stood up as she asked the question. "You'll be back for lunch?"

Daisuke shook his head. "Probably not until tonight." He glanced up at his mom uneasily. "In fact, I might not be back tonight either... um... I might stay with Takeru again."

"Why?" Jun asked, a huge smirk on her face.

Glare glare glare. "Be_cause_, Jun, I have friends and I like to spend time with them. Plus we have a big project due in rhetoric and we have to work on it." He glanced at Takeru for backup, who nodded. "That's what we were working on last night, too." Sending a smirk at his sister, Daisuke looked back up at his parents. "Is that okay?"

Shrugs from both. "We have to go to work," his father responded. Daisuke rolled his eyes slightly, the look on his face screaming 'So what else is new?' but silently nodded as both parents crossed over in front of him and started pulling on coats and shoes. "If you need anything, call. Call me at _work,_" the man tapped his son on the forehead twice as if he was implanting the sentence in his head, and Daisuke nodded again. "If I'm not there, leave a message with my secretary and I'll get it. Jun, do you need a ride?"

The girl shook her head and beamed at her little brother. "No! I'll just stay here for a while!"

"Great," Daisuke replied flatly.

On their way out the door, his mother kissed him on the forehead gently and waved with a smile. Takeru turned to tease Daisuke about the kiss as soon as the door shut, but the red haired boy fixed him with such a look that he swallowed it.

He obviously wasn't embarrassed about it, though, as he raked both hands through his hair and looked just as cool and collected as ever. He turned his fierce look on his sister next. "So what do you want to hassle me about now, and can it wait? These pants ride my ass like a cowboy on a horse."

"Go change," she grinned. "Takeru, do you want anything to drink? Breakfast? Anything?"

"Don't eat anything she cooks you!" Daisuke called back over his shoulder before he slammed the door to his room so he could change.

"That boy," Jun mumbled. She stood up and opened the refrigerator, pulling out three cans of soda. She handed one to Takeru, set the second on the bar, and opened the third. "Takeru, right? You're not friends with my brother, I can tell. So why are you really hanging around with him? Pity?"

Takeru blinked. "Huh?" He opened his soda and took a quick drink. "I guess we're not friends, no. More like acquaintances. What makes you think we aren't friends?"

She snorted. "Oh, come on. _Look_ at you. And look at him. You just don't... match."

"Opposites attract," Takeru shrugged.

"Whatever," the girl responded.

At this point, the door to Daisuke's room opened and he stepped out in brown corduroys, a red shirt with a number 18 in the top left corner, and holding Takeru's clothing like it was a dead animal. He handed it over to the blonde and started attaching a wallet chain to his belt loop, eyeing Jun accusingly. "What've you been telling him about me? Don't believe it, it's all lies," he nodded at Takeru, then opened the black wallet with a flame design on the other end of the chain and flipped through it. "Hey, Jun? Can I borrow some cash?"

Putting her hands on her hips, she sighed. "How much?"

"Twenty? Please? You know I'm good for it..." the boy raised one eyebrow at her, then swiped the soda sitting on the bar and opened it, throwing his head back for a long drink. When he finished, Jun crossed to the coat rack by the door and opened it, then handed several bills over to her little brother. "Thank you," he acknowledged, stuffing the cash into his wallet and shoving the wallet into his back pocket. "We're gonna hang around here because we're waiting for somebody... You're not _really_ staying here, are you?"

"No, I have to get to work," Jun shrugged, tucking stray hair behind her ear. "I was just here waiting for you to get drilled by mom and dad. Are you hungry? Did you boys have breakfast? So where were you _really_ last night?" she asked all the questions in a rush, not exactly expecting answers, as she began pulling on a jacket and sliding on shoes.

Daisuke lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "We went to Tamachi to meet up with another friend. The same one that's coming here today."

Jun glanced over her shoulder at him. "Were you all right?"

"Yup."

"Does she know?" Takeru leaned over and mumbled to Daisuke. His response was a shrug and a half nod.

"Jun, remember that old laptop Dad used to have, the one that he quit using when he got the new one?"

Scrambling the eggs, the girl nodded. "Sure, the ugly boxy black one?"

"That's the one. Where is it, do you know?"

"Check his office and maybe in that old box under their bed, I would guess." She crossed her arms and studied her brother. "So, anything else?"

"Nope," Daisuke shook his head. "I'm set. Get to work, lazy bitch."

"Asshole," she smiled at him, waved at Takeru, and then left.

Takeru turned to Daisuke and blinked. "So do you guys like each other or hate each other?"

Shoving red hair from his eyes, the other smirked. "Both. Hang on for a minute, okay? I need to find dad's old laptop."

"Sure," the blonde leaned against the wall and studied the apartment. "Nice," he mumbled, then decided to return the favor of room prowling that Daisuke had given him.

Opening the door to the room, Takeru raised an eyebrow. It wasn't really _messy,_ there was just... stuff everywhere. Clothes were laying everywhere but in the laundry basket that was somewhat centered in the room, the covers of the bed tangled and hanging over the edge to the floor, manga and CDs were scattered around the room. In the wall at the head of Daisuke's bed was a three-tiered shelf. Takeru decided that would be the most interesting place to look considering it was covered with stuff.

Nothing was too out of the ordinary on the top-shelf – more manga, books, magazines... a whole bunch of reading things. Takeru hated reading. The second shelf had a stereo centered on it with CDs laying everywhere. "Geez, does this kid ever exist in silence?" he mumbled as he poked a mini-disc player out of the way.

The bottom shelf was more interesting and diverse. Bracelets and necklaces were sprawled over it, some of them sitting in a small ceramic dish but most just lazily thrown there. An alarm clock and a game boy were stuffed into a corner, and there was a half-empty bottle of a Jones soda mixed in there somewhere, ringed with more bracelets. There was a box of strawberry pocky, a half-empty carton of cigarettes, and a cell phone.

The most interesting thing was a square shiny wrapper. Maybe it was the shining silver colour that made Takeru pick it up or maybe it was because he just didn't recognize it, but a few seconds later Takeru discovered he was holding an empty condom wrapper.

"Holy..." he dropped it back on the shelf and moved on. Roller blades, a skateboard, and a soccer ball were all stashed at the bottom of the bed. Against the other wall was a dresser with more interesting things, so the blonde headed that way and hoped he didn't come across the contents of the aforementioned wrapper.

Most of what was on the dresser was spare change, receipts, a CD or two... Takeru opened one of the cases and tilted his head to the side. "Jimmy Eat World? What the hell?"

"They're really good," a voice made him jump and drop the case. A hand caught it before it had even fallen a foot, and Takeru followed the arm up to find Daisuke smirking at him. Crossing to his bed, Daisuke slid the CD from its case and placed it in the stereo, then sat down heavily on his bed with a yawn. "You don't listen to punk much, do you? Your music tastes suck ass," the darker boy murmured as music filled the room.

"Did you find your dad's laptop?"

"Nope. Not where Jun said it would be. No big deal though."

The blonde shrugged and turned back to the dresser. A photo album was sitting there, and he opened it and started flipping through. It didn't take him long to verify that Daisuke was (finally) telling the truth about living in California. "Lots of girls in here."

"I like girls," came the response.

"Lots of guys, too."

"I like guys."

Takeru raised an eyebrow and turned to Daisuke, laughing nervously and passing it off as a joke. "So who are all these people?"

Shoving off the bed, the red haired boy sauntered over, singing under his breath. He took the album and started flipping through, pointing and naming people. "Bridget. Nel. Ross. Keith and Kyle, that's Crystal. Kevin and Joe and Tony and Richie. This is Dusty and that's Eva. This is Blue and that's Purple, we called 'em that because the trucks on their boards were that colour no matter how often they'd switch to a new board. Flamer, he's gay, obviously. Lizard and Lily and Rosa."

"Wait, what are trucks?"

Daisuke lifted his eyes and gave him a look that bluntly read 'You fucking moron' as he stared in silent disbelief. He passed back the photo album, and headed towards his bed where he kicked the skateboard up and held it out to Takeru, who'd followed him over. "The trucks are what the wheels go on. See? Mine got flames. I would have been Flames 'cause I always have flaming trucks but yanno, we already had a Flamer. Besides, I'm not gay."

"How come it's so scratched up?" Takeru eyed the deep grooves etched into the board.

"Grinding on it."

Takeru decided not to ask what grinding was. "So if you weren't Flames, what were you?"

"Huh? Oh. Ferret. They called me ferret because I skate the way a ferret runs. Which is to say I sort of go fast and recklessly weavin' around everywhere. Ah well. All in good fun, right?" Daisuke leaned the board against his bed and sat down again. "Lemme see the album, I'll show you more people."

Takeru sat down next to him and listened as Daisuke ran through the pages, pointing out people and places and things and explaining nicknames and stories all the way. There was something in the way Daisuke talked that stuck out to Takeru, but he couldn't put his finger on it or name it. It was like he... missed it? Homesickness? No, it wasn't really that because he didn't sound sad. It was sort of nostalgic, but in a good way. Like he was happy remembering everyone back home. It suddenly occurred to Takeru that he must not have mentioned any of these people since he'd moved. Everyone at school, even those who were hanging around Daisuke more often, still thought he came from Osaka. How they'd bought into the story the blonde had no idea – it was _so_ obvious – but they still believed the act and the darker boy was still keeping it up.

"It must suck not to be able to tell anyone about this," he thought out loud, mumbling under his breath.

Daisuke turned his head to eye him carefully. "What?"

"Uh. Nothing, just thinking." The blonde shrugged and grinned stupidly, trying to shrug it off.

Unfortunately, he wasn't being let off easily. "What were you thinking about? What did you mean?"

Chewing his lip in thought, Takeru tilted his head. "Well, I was just thinking about how everyone thinks you're from Osaka and so you haven't been going on and on to people about California and how cool it was and how much you miss it..."

"I don't miss it," came the flat, sharp reply.

"Whatever," the other snorted, not buying it for a second. "I heard every bit of longing in your voice. You haven't made one close friend here, have you? Huh? You want to just go back home and fall in with everyone who already worships you. And you know _why_ you haven't made close friends yet? Because you're afraid. You don't want to have to move again and lose everybody just like you did before."

Amazingly, Daisuke had remained silent and thoughtful during the lecture and raised an eyebrow. "You through?"

"Yes," came the meek response.

In an instant, Daisuke had tossed the photo album aside and tackled Takeru, throwing both of them off the bed and to the floor. Pinning him there with one hand on each shoulder, the darker boy snarled, "I am _not_ afraid. You don't even understand."

The blonde, pinned and confused by the sudden change from calm to anger, blinked. "What don't I understand?"

"Everything. You don't even know what a goddamn _grind_ is, how can I expect you to get what's happened in the last two years? I can't. So shut the hell up and stick with what you know, okay? Play your little stupid basketball games and flirt with the girls and talk shit about people you don't even know with your goddamn preppy friends. Don't try to figure me out and don't even _start_ to think you understand me. You got it?" When Takeru didn't answer right away, Daisuke slammed him against the floor again.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," the other nodded hurriedly. They stayed that way for a minute, Takeru pinned against the dirty bedroom floor with Daisuke angrily glaring at him from above.

The doorbell rang and Daisuke sat back. "Go answer the door."

Takeru rose shakily and hurried to the door, half expecting a bullet to rip through his back any second. As he opened the door to see Ken standing there, he sighed with relief. "Hey, you made it."

"Yep," the indigo haired boy nodded slightly. He then peered closer and raised an eyebrow. "Are you all right? You look a bit shaken."

"I'm fine," he assured Ken, then pushed open the door.

Daisuke shut the door to his room behind him and brushed past Takeru, hardly giving him a glance. There was a funny look on his face, somewhere between anger and calm and extreme confusion. "Let's go, Ichijouji."

Ken gave Takeru a questioning glance as they followed the darker boy outside, and Takeru shook his head a bit as they waited for Daisuke to lock the door behind them. There wasn't time for an explanation, and it wasn't the place for it anyway. Not with Daisuke there – he wasn't about to talk shit about him behind his back, not literally anyway.

The three walked to the subway in an awkward silence, Ken making slight attempts at conversation with Takeru for the first few minutes, and then finally giving up as they all settled down in a train car. He strategically placed himself between Takeru and Daisuke, however, not eager for an all-out brawl between them in a confined area that they wouldn't be able to escape from until the next stop.

As the train pulled from the station and headed towards the side of town Taichi's apartment was on, Daisuke sighed heavily. He leaned forward and studied the blonde on Ken's other side. "Sorry. Shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Takeru blinked and suddenly recognized the tone he'd heard in Daisuke's voice earlier when he was talking about California. It was the same tone he was using now.

It was regret.

"It... it's okay, no big deal. I'm sorry too," the blonde shrugged.

That same weird look that was a mix of about five emotions at once stayed on the others face as they stared silently across Ken for a long moment, then both turned away at once. Daisuke sighed again and slumped back against the subway seat. Takeru sighed as well, picking at his shirt idly. Ken, in the middle, groaned in confusion.

The ride continued in silence between the three.


	9. 9

Yamato studied a paper before him with scrawled drawings all over it. He ran his fingers through the blonde hair that always hung in front of his face, brushing it out of his eyes for a brief moment before it fell right back in place. Finally lifting his gaze from the paper, he ran his eyes about the room before him.

Koushiro was glancing through something on his laptop, not like that was any surprise. He'd been glued to it ever since Yamato showed up. Taichi was glaring at Ken threateningly, his initial rage towards the boy who was partially responsible for the kidnapping of his sister still boiling hot under his skin, flames practically glowing from his eyes.

Daisuke was next to Taichi, being the only one able to keep him from stabbing the indigo haired boy with whatever was in his hand, which had been a pen cap still clutched firmly in his fingers. The dark skinned boy was strangely quiet, elbows on his knees and chin in his hand, goggles pulled down over his dark eyes, protecting them from the dark-red hair that hung lazily down in his gaze. He noticed Yamato watching him and looked up slightly, both exchanging a long contemplative gaze before simultaneously looking away.

Takeru was sitting near Ken, uncomfortable, looking nervous and glum. Ken was watching the younger blonde, trying to avoid Taichi's burning eye, quietly trying to pry something out of him. Yamato couldn't hear the words being exchanged, but Takeru kept shaking his head silently.

Finally the tall blonde rose to his feet, stretching and holding out the paper. "These plans make no sense to me. Koushiro, look at these."

The techie took the paper and glanced over it, then looked up at Ken. "Are you sure about these?"

"Fairly," Ichijouji responded, backing off his discussion with Takeru. He stole the chance to get away, moving to sit on the couch beside Daisuke and Taichi. The purple haired boy gave him a baleful look, then turned back to Koushiro. "I'm ninety-five percent sure they're correct."

"Ninety-five, huh..." Koushiro put a hand to his chin, rubbing thoughtfully for a second before pulling his hand away and studying it, muttering something about needing a good shave.

"That isn't good enough for me," Taichi grumbled.

"Ninety-five is the best we'll get, Taichi," Daisuke responded quietly, studying the floor. "We can't send him back in to scout it out. Would you trust him running back to the enemy?" Taichi shot his death glare in his direction, and the younger boy lifted his eyes from the ground and pulled the goggles off his eyes, settling them on his forehead. "Taichi, I know. But we can't."

Grunting in acknowledgement, Taichi turned away. Daisuke sighed and rose to his feet. "I need a square."

Yamato reached in his back pocket and threw a pack of cigarettes to Daisuke. "You can owe me."

"Thanks," the darker boy answered, sliding one out and then flinging the pack back. "I'm heading out on the balcony to smoke this. Anybody want anything, that's where I'll be."

"I'll come with you," Yamato pulled a cancer stick from the pack and headed out on the balcony with the other. The blonde slid the glassdoor shut behind them and leaned against the railing, Daisuke taking a seat on the ground and dangling his feet over the ledge through the rails. They both lit up and took a drag.

"Jesus Christ I fucked up," Daisuke exhaled.

Yamato grinned slightly, shutting his eyes to the breeze. "Yeah, I know."

"Why am I so stupid?" the darker boy groaned, leaning forward and resting his forehead against a rail.

"Because. Look, Ken has the hots for Takeru."

Daisuke whipped his head around and stared inside at Ken, who'd moved onto the couch and was trying to talk to Takeru again. He snarled. "I don't like that guy."

"Ken?"

"Yeah. I can't stand him. Anybody that perfect should be dragged out into the street and shot. Ugh," he grumbled and turned away as the indigo haired boy leaned closer to the blonde.

"Jealous?"

"So fucking what." Daisuke turned his gaze up to the tall blonde. "I can't do this."

"You have to, Daisuke. We're all counting on you."

"I know, but I still can't," he groaned, taking another drag.

The glass door slid open and Koushiro stepped out onto the balcony, waving his hand at the smell of cigarette smoke. "Disgusting habit." Both nicotine addicts held up their middle fingers nonchalantly and Koushiro grinned slightly. "Listen, Dais. Last night the comparison ran and I've got a list of the kids Ken said he'd talked to. I went ahead and got you addresses and everything," he handed a paper to him. "Do what you can with it; I know you'll figure something you." Pointing over his shoulder, Koushiro stepped back into the apartment. "I have to get back to make sure Taichi doesn't murder Ken. Take as long as you need, you two."

Leaning back against the glass door and ashing his nearly gone cigarette, Daisuke put it up to his mouth for one last drag. Exhaling heavily and squelching out the smoke as it began burning in to the filter, the darker boy eyed the papers in silence. After several long moments had passed, he looked up. "Yamato? I know you won't like this, but I want to take Takeru with me."

The tall blonde was playing with the burning remains of his cigarette. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet, but I want Takeru with me." Daisuke glanced down at the paper. "I think I need to get someone on the inside. Ken isn't what we need. We need... somebody a little more dangerous." Pulling the goggles down and settling them over his eyes, Daisuke started nodding a little. "Yeah... I definitely need to get the hookup on one of these guys."

"What does my brother have to do with this?" Yamato asked, not leaking any emotions into his voice.

"Believe it or not, I kind of like having him around," the darker boy muttered. "He sort of keeps me from snapping and just shooting someone in the head."

Chuckling, the blonde shrugged. "Take care of him and I don't mind. But don't order him along, give him an option."

Glancing over his shoulder to the apartment through the glass, Daisuke blankly eyed Ken. "What'll we do with Ichijouji?"

"Koushiro will take care of him," Yamato slid the door open and headed inside.

Daisuke sat alone for another brief moment, swallowing a breath of cold, fresh air before he pulled to his feet and followed. "Takeru," he said as soon as he had stepped in, pulling himself together and putting on the badass fighter attitude again, "I'm going out. You want to come? It won't be pretty."

The blonde jumped off the couch and nodded. "I'm the one who begged to be in on this, remember? I'm in."

Daisuke shot a questioning glance to Yamato, who nodded his approval. "Koush, do me a favor, eh, keep an eye on our little perfect bitch here," the boy batted the back of Ken's head. "Yamato, hang on to your cell because I'll be hitting the emergency button if anything goes wrong, and emergency is your dandy little Motorola."

"I won't put it down for a second," the blonde nodded, flopping down into a soft armchair.

"Pick one," Daisuke held out the list of names to Takeru. The blonde eyed the sheet briefly, then pointed. "That's the one then. Koush, make a note that we're gonna hit up Miyaoku Kaioh."

Taichi stopped glaring at Ken for a brief moment to tap Daisuke hard on the forehead. "Watch your ass. Be careful. Don't do anything stupid. And for the love of somen noodles, don't get Takeru hurt."

Takeru blinked. "For the love of somen noodles?"

"Inside joke," Daisuke responded. "Come on, Gilligan, let's get going."

Takeru's feet were cramping, but he bit his lip to keep from whining about it. Daisuke was crouched next to him, studying an apartment building across the road. They'd been there, both ducked behind a group of bushes, watching a specific apartment for at least ten minutes. The blonde groaned quietly, shifting his weight a little bit. Next to him, Daisuke shot him a look that read 'shut up' with several explicit words somewhere in there, so he stifled the remains of his groan.

"All right, I think it's clear," the darker boy muttered as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulling out a pair of gloves.

"What's clear?" Takeru mumbled, wincing and wiggling his toes in an attempt to regain feeling in them.

"I was just making sure we aren't being watched, and that the apartment itself isn't being watched," Daisuke replied, reaching into the cargo pocket of his pants and producing a 22. Takeru wasn't surprised, although he wished he was, as the two rose and ran across the street without a word passing between them.

Sliding against the wall and pausing in front of the apartment door, Daisuke tilted his head at Takeru. "Follow me in and watch your ass. If anything happens get the hell out. Oh, and call your brother," he added, passing over a cellphone. "It's the emergency button, the red one. He's on speed dial."

"Why him?" Takeru asked, shoving the phone into his back pocket.

"Because I count on him," came the short reply. Rolling his shoulders and cracking his back, Daisuke pulled the goggles from his neck and snapped them onto his eyes. "Here we go. Hope you aren't afraid of bloodshed."

Slamming a hard kick into the apartment door near the handle, it splintered at the lock and fell inwards. Daisuke followed it quickly and swept the area with his eyes, following with the 22 in hand. The entry room was empty. Glancing over his shoulder briefly at Takeru and shaking his head to get his unruly red hair from his eyes, Daisuke commanded, "Shut the door behind us. Can't leave it open, it's too cold out. SHUT it, Takeru!" he snapped when the blonde didn't move fast enough.

Takeru pushed the door back towards the broken lock and shoved until it stayed remotely in place. "There, happy?"

"Yes. Come on, cover me."

"With _what?_" the other snapped.

"Your own ass, stupid!" Daisuke strode forwards into the apartment and down a hallway, using his feet to open doors as his hands were on the revolver. He slammed in to a bathroom and an office, both empty. He paused in the office, nudging a bag with his foot. "We got us a rich little asshole here," he mumbled. "That's a fuckload of weed." Nudging past Takeru, he kicked in another door.

The door caved in and a short, muffled shriek came from inside as Daisuke followed it, finger tensing on the trigger. Takeru winced, waiting for the explosive shots.

There was silence.

Daring to squeeze one eye open, the blonde could read every bit of surprise on the goggle-shielded eyes of Daisuke. The dark haired boy slowly lowered the gun and his mouth opened, a word trying to make its way out, but nothing more than a mumble formed. He swallowed and tried again. "Bass."

Takeru blinked and followed into the room. Sitting on the bed was a girl with pink and red streaked hair and a boy with bright green hair. The girl was cringing slightly behind the boy and he was holding a gun in one hand, tilted slightly away from Daisuke as he'd realized who it was, the same shock on his own face. "Bass?" Takeru asked, looking towards his tagmate.

"Yo, Ferret," Bass grinned weakly.

Daisuke was leaning against a table, head in his hands. Takeru sat quietly next to him, circling one finger around the edge of a mug of tea. The girl, introduced as Tachikawa Mimi, was pouring tea for the three guys sitting around the table in an uneasy silence. Bass was studying Daisuke's weapon carefully, playing around a little with the safety. "Nice shit, Ferret," he mumbled. No more of a response came from the red-haired boy outside of a small grunt of acknowledgment.

Mimi set the kettle down on a hotplate and plopped her hands on her hips. She was a pretty girl by Takeru's standards, brown cords sagging off her hips and a baby-tee hugging her curves, which were not lacking. She smiled, either trying to make light of the situation or oblivious to the seriousness. "So you're the famous Ferret I hear so much about, eh? You want anything in that tea?"

Daisuke raised his head, not enough of an asshole to ignore a pretty girl. "Uh, no, I'm good. Thanks."

Her smile widened. "Bass told me all about you. Nice to put a face to a name."

"Yeah, funny he never mentioned you to me," the boy mumbled, shooting a cold glare at the boy across the table.

Bass made a face. "Aw, c'mon Ferret. This isn't my fault."

"I know."

"I'm confused," Takeru interjected, turning every head towards him. "You're Bass and you're supposed to be captured by the... er... Byen-cho? God, I can't keep anything straight anymore."

"Yeah," Daisuke nodded once at the blonde, "you got it right. Fuck, Bass, you got a square? I need one like all hell."

Mimi pulled a pack from her back pocket and handed one to Daisuke, followed by a lighter. "I don't let him carry them. I'm the one in control of his smoking habit."

Flashing a quick grin, Daisuke lit up and handed the lighter back to the girl. "Hey, I know what you mean." He paused to take a long drag, then exhaled on a heavy sigh. "It's like, if I wasn't currently broke I'd be doin' a pack a day." Turning his dark gaze on Bass, he shook his head. "I don't get it. Why? I completely missed something."

Bass shrugged and rose to his feet, heading towards the refrigerator and swiping a can of beer, opting out of having a tea party. "It's fucked, Ferret. You weren't supposed to get mixed up in this."

"Yeah, well I _did_ get in it. Fuck now."

"Come on, you two, watch the language, all right?" Mimi sat down in Bass' seat and took over his cup of tea. She winked at Takeru and took a long drink.

Daisuke shoved back from the table and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "Back up, okay. What's going _on_ here? Who's she, besides your girlfriend?"

Bass shrugged and placed his hand on the back of Mimi's chair. "She's the reason I got caught up." A tilt of the head suggested Daisuke didn't understand, so he continued. "See, she's sort of... the daughter of Mr. Byen-cho."

"Holy _fuck,_" Daisuke raised one eyebrow.

"Yep. And what can I say, I fell for her. Sucks to be Bass, you know?" The boy shook his head and ran a hand through his green hair. "It's real messed up, Ferret. Don't ever get into gangs and shit. You get caught up and then you can never get out."

The eyebrow fell back in line with the other, creased in confusion. "Un. So you fell for her, but you're on opposite sides. Wow, very Romeo and Juliet." Daisuke suddenly smacked his forehead and pointed at Bass with his cigarette. "Miyaoku! Miyaoku Kaioh! Why didn't I realize it before?"

"Eh?" Takeru blinked, feeling incredibly lost on the entire conversation.

"Miyaoku Osaruka is the guy in the lead of Kaze and that's his _father!_ I didn't even realize that when I read off the name! Jesus Christ!" Daisuke shook his head.

"You're dense, Ferret," Bass grinned and leaned on the chair, resting his chin on Mimi's head.

"No kidding! Okay, okay, so let me get this straight. You love her," Daisuke pointed at Mimi, "but you couldn't be with her because you were Osaruka's kid. But I thought Osaruka didn't even want you in with Kaze."

"He didn't. But that doesn't mean everybody else didn't," Mimi answered for him. "He had lots of pressure to step up into Osaruka's place should anything go wrong. It wouldn't have settled well with anybody if he'd gone off with me, not even Osaruka."

"But I thought you were kidnapped or something," Takeru blinked. "And Daisuke said he'd found out where you were."

"Yeah, fuck that, dude, don't tell me I was wrong. Everything pointed to you being shoved into that goddamn wine cellar."

"Damn, Ferret!" Bass grinned brightly. "You're good at this. You followed everything through.

Daisuke shook his head and blinked. "Whaaaaaaat?"

"Okay, okay," Bass pulled out a fourth chair and plonked down into it. "I already told you that I was practically head over heels for Mims here. Well, the only way we could actually be together was if I broke off from the Kaze. So I did that, except I sort of... faked everything."

"You faked it?" the darker boy leaned against the table, eyebrows going up in surprise and admiration. "Well you did a good job."

"Yep. I had everything set out. A kidnapping, evidence of a struggle, and planted some good old electronic hints that would lead anyone cool enough to hack through to believe I was being held in the old wine cellar at Muradae Hill." Bass grinned. "You missed stuff though. I had lots of hints. I planted stuff towards the wine cellar and about five other places. I mean, if you'd busted in to the wine cellar and I wasn't there, you'd have gone looking for more evidence, right? So then you'd follow the hints to wherever the next place I put down was, but I wouldn't be there, so..."

"Clever," Daisuke nodded. "But why all the stalling?"

"I needed time to stall, because tomorrow I'll be dead."

"Eh?" Takeru tilted his head to the side. "God, seems like all I've said this entire time is 'eh.' You're gonna be dead?"

"Tomorrow I'm faking a death. As far as Osaruka is concerned I'll be gone. He'll never know I'm across town making out with the daughter of his enemy," he winked once at the girl, who giggled.

Silence fell in the room as Daisuke stuffed out his cigarette into an ashtray. "Man. You thought this out. You're real set, aren't you," he mumbled.

The pride and happiness dissolved from Bass' expression and he sighed. "I told you, Ferret... you weren't supposed to get involved in this whole thing."

Pulling the goggles from around his neck and passing them back and forth from one hand to the other, the darker boy shook his head. "I am though. Now what."

It wasn't a question, so Bass didn't answer. He sighed once more. "Listen... Daisuke," he used the skater's real name for the first time that day. "I know you want your friend back... I can tell you she's safe."

He looked up. "She's fine?"

"She's fine. We're taking care of her. See, I told you she wasn't worth what your father said," the boy nodded at Mimi.

"What's she worth?" The blonde blinked. "I don't like the sound of that. She's a human being, not something you can put a price on."

"Not to my father," Mimi grimaced. "My dad thought she was pretty close to Osaruka, that she meant something. That of course is through assuming Ferret means something to Osaruka."

"Which he doesn't mean anything more than another check to write out," Bass snorted in contempt.

Takeru blinked and snapped his head towards Daisuke. "Check? What check?"

Daisuke grimaced. "Takeru... there's stuff you don't know. Stuff I lied to you about."

"You _lied_ to me?" the blonde shoved back from the table and stared in disbelief. "I was helping you because I thought you were trying to save your friends ass, but really you're only in it for money, aren't you? My God, you're a goddamn mercenary, Daisuke!"

Bass blinked and stood up, grabbing Mimi's hand. "Um, okay, I think we'll duck back into the bedroom until you two work this out."

"No, don't go anywhere," Daisuke held up a hand. "Whatever I have to say to him, I can say it in front of you. Listen, Takeru... for one thing, you were the one begging me to let you in on this whole thing, so don't shift blame. You begged me, just two weeks, just two weeks! That's all you wanted, two weeks. And I gave you those two weeks before you even knew what was going on. Am I right? Sit your ass down, Takeru. I asked you if I was right."

Takeru sat down heavily into his chair. "Yeah, okay, you're right," he replied tersely.

"All right then," the other nodded once, no anger in his voice, only something that resembled exhaustion. "For another, I couldn't tell you everything. I was trying to protect you and to keep you from knowing too much. And also... I needed to know you'd be on my side. I know, I'm a fucking mercenary, okay? But that's not all that I am." Daisuke sighed and slumped backwards in his chair. "Osaruka came to me because he knew Bass was my friend. And I wanted my friend back, dammit. In case you haven't noticed, I don't have many of those here, okay? I'd have done anything to get him back." He chewed his lip slightly. "It was his own fault he offered me money. I'd have done it for nothing but he threw an offer at me. So I took it. Somebody waves a practically blank check in your face, you think you're gonna turn it down? Hell no.

"So I told him I'd do it. And I made up this whole long story to get Koushiro on my side. Koush was some little techy I just happened to run into some day and I don't even remember how he wound up in it. And then he introduced me to Yamato and to Taichi and it was a little overwhelming, so I spilled the truth. And then _you_ somehow got in there..." Blowing out a breath, Daisuke pulled a hand through his hair. "I lied to you just the same as I lied to Koush. I... I don't know what else to tell you," he shrugged.

"I don't know what to think, either," Takeru tilted his head to the side.

The darker boy sighed heavily. "Listen, Takeru. You said two weeks, but if you want out now... I won't blame you. You can get up and walk out and go home, forget any of this ever happened, and it'll all be over, no big deal."

Leaning back in his chair, the other tilted one eyebrow down in thought. "I don't know, Daisuke."

"Ferret?" Both turned to Bass, who looked a little uncomfortable in the midst of an argument he had nothing to do with. "I hate to change subject on you, but I think this is important. I know how you can fix this whole bullshit mess with your friend and the Byen-cho and Osaruka and everything."

Daisuke straightened up and leaned towards Bass. "What? How?"

Mimi pointed to Takeru, who was just as interested as the darker boy. "Look. I think we already figured out Blondie here isn't pulling out of this deal just yet."

Takeru and Daisuke locked gazes for a long moment before Takeru shrugged and smiled slightly. "I'm the one who begged to be in on this, remember? I'm in," he repeated the line he'd uttered earlier that afternoon.

Daisuke grinned back one of his rare, genuine smiles. They both turned back to Bass, back in kick some ass mode. "All right, Bass, hook it up. Let's fix this shit."

Bass cracked his knuckles. "Okay, check it. Mimi's father is not the favorite guy among Byen-cho right now... if he died, no one would really miss him."

One dark eyebrow lifted. "Are you telling me to kill her father?" he shifted his gaze to Mimi.

The girl pushed her hair behind her shoulders and put her hands on her hips. "He's telling you no one would miss him if he was gone," she replied evenly.

"Not even you?" Takeru challenged easily.

She turned her eyes on Bass, then back to Takeru. "I'd get over it."

"Heh, I take it your father doesn't approve of his background?" Daisuke grinned slightly.

"You would be right on that," the green-haired boy grumbled.

"Thing is, everyone else pretty well likes Bass. He didn't have much to do with Kaze beyond being Osaruka's son. Besides, if my father is gone, I take his place. Or rather, Bass would since mainly a male figure is looked at to lead." Mimi raised one shoulder in a shrug. "Sexist, but I don't care. He's got the background to handle it. Everyone knows that."

"Tell you the truth, there's been talk of a mutiny anyway," Bass added.

Daisuke plopped his chin in one hand. "So... if her dad gets killed... nobody would care. Osaruka would be happy that I'd avenge the supposed death of you, which will occur tomorrow, correct?"

"Correct. Early Sunday morning. So you should make your move that night."

Takeru leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table. "So assuming we did kill Mimi's father, there'd be a little bit of unorganized chaos that would follow... and in that chaos we could take Hikari and run."

"And if Bass steps in as leader, he wouldn't follow up on regaining her, or the people who went after her. Meaning me," Daisuke grinned.

Mimi dusted her hands on her cords. "Listen, you two. Sunday night. 8:30."

"We'll find a way to keep everyone out of your way," Bass nodded.

The blonde shot a nervous glance at Daisuke. "We should run this by Koushiro first. And the rest of the guys. And Ken."

Daisuke growled at the name. "Fuck Ken, we don't need him."

"Who's Ken?" the girl sat down on Bass' lap, tilting her head to the side.

"Ichijouji Ken. You might know him, Mims. He did a lot of the programming for the Byen-cho systems."

"Oh! That kid! Yeah, I remember him... what's he got to do with this?"

"We uh. Kidnapped him," Takeru grinned slightly.

For a moment Mimi stared blankly, then laughed. "You kidnapped Ichijouji Ken? You could have poked him with a watergun and got anything out of that kid! He doesn't know much of anything beyond the work he did on his own, don't bother with him."

In a grunt of disgust, Daisuke leaned forwards. "Mimi, will you draw me a map of the Byen-cho hangout? Ken gave us one, but I don't trust his knowledge. Especially not anymore."

"Sure, Ferret," she hopped up and headed into the other room to get some paper.

Takeru took the pause in conversation to eye Daisuke. "So why do they call you Ferret?"

Bass laughed. "You ever see this guy skate? He skates the way a ferret runs. That is, somewhat like greased lightening. He rocks ass. He's fast and he can get around anything he wants to."

"No... I've never seen him skate."

"You're missing out," the older boy nodded. "He's good."

"Geh, not really" Daisuke shrugged off the praise.

"Pfft, don't be modest."

"Here, Ferret!" Mimi bounced back in to the kitchen and presented a folded paper to Daisuke. "A map. I marked two places. One of them is where Hikari is and the other is where we'll have my father be. 8:30 at night, don't forget."

"You should go," Bass stood up. "Ferret... Daisuke. We can't communicate much after this. I'll disappear for a long time."

Daisuke glanced over the map briefly and then handed it to Takeru. "Bass, dude. We'll hook up sometime. Maybe five years from now, who knows. Who cares. Just watch it, okay? Don't get caught up in shit anymore."

"You neither, punkass. Be careful. And back off everything, all right?"

"Yeah yeah." Daisuke shoved his hands down in his pockets. "I've stopped. Not messing with that shit anymore. You shouldn't either."

"If things go as planned, we won't be once my dad is gone," Mimi dipped her head to the side, then bounced forward and hugged Daisuke. "Be careful. Do good, all right?"

"Yeah," the darker boy squeezed her back in a quick hug.

"You too, Takeru, be careful with this guy," Bass grinned. "He'll get you fucked up faster than you know."

"Oh, believe me, I've realized that," the blonde rolled his eyes and groaned slightly.

Daisuke laughed slightly. "Come on, Takeru, we have to get out of here. Um, hey... Bass..."

"I know, Ferret."

"Yeah." The boy tilted his head to the side, then snapped his goggles on over his eyes. "We're out."


	10. 10

_Hrmph. Well, I actually intended this story to swoop into a different direction, but then decided to not take it there... so this is probably the shortest part yet. I was bored with all the planning... so were Daisuke and Takeru, who take a short break... and allow me to take a break to build up their relationship. Next part, the romance is gonna... well, you'll see. Anyway. I want to finish this up soonish but I'm not sure when... I have two parts left to do - the Sunday after this part and then the optional lemon... which actually may be scrapped in light of another lemon I have sitting here begging me to finish it. And also I want to finish Tanked (which is nearly done and may turn into a big orgy if I continue writing things at 2 am...) and there's a new medieval/samurai story I've got pouting about in my brain saying "Write me, I'm neat. Write me, I'm neat." Also, Lying Awake needs to be flung it's final entry and Troubled needs added to... and... ersh. I have too much to finish. _

_Anyways, as always I don't own any of these characters, but the story is mine. If you want to be added to the mailing list to get alerted when I upload new things, check Except that I may cancel that group because out of 16 members, none have really been reviewing my stories or giving me any feedback at all, which I'm more than slightly annoyed at. (I'm an artist. We live off feedback. It's our sustenance.)_

_By the way, I later found out the name of the narrator in Fight Club is 'Jack.' However, I believe he is listed in the credits only as The Narrator. shrug!_

"You know who you remind me of?"

"Who?" Daisuke glanced up from his lunch briefly.

Takeru flipped a noodle over with his chopsticks and dropped it into his mouth. "You're from America. Did you ever see Fight Club?"

Daisuke nodded. "Yeah, yeah, good movie."

"You remind me of that guy. What's his name, Tyler. You remind me of him."

"Oh yeah?" Daisuke asked around a mouthful of food, grinning. "So," he swallowed, "who would you be?" Takeru shrugged a little, and Daisuke grinned a little more. "You're the other kid, right? The narrator guy, you know... Cornelius, Rupert, Travis! They never said his real name, did they?"

The blonde shook his head. "Nah, I don't think they ever did."

"So I'm like your alter ego or something, eh? And you're fucking psycho?"

"Sure, why not."

Silence fell over the table as Daisuke stirred his noodles, then snickered. "Tyler," he mumbled under his breath, like he was proud to be compared to the character.

"Hey, Daisuke, can I ask you something?" Takeru interrupted the silence.

"You just did," the darker boy pointed out, shoveling a bite of somen into his mouth.

"I mean something else."

"You can ask, but I might not answer," Daisuke shrugged, leaning against the table.

Takeru sat back in his chair and tilted his head to the side, "Do you really trust Ken?"

"Takeru, to be honest, I don't trust much of anybody."

The blonde scowled. "Not even Taichi?"

Another shrug as the darker boy ran his fingers through his hair. "Sure, I trust Taichi. And Yamato, and Koushiro. If I didn't, I wouldn't have brought them into all this."

Their table was silent as the two stared at each other. Takeru edged out his question quietly and hesitantly, diverting his eyes to the table. "What about me?"

Daisuke didn't answer and turned away to study the street from the window. The two were sitting in a corner restaurant, taking a break from reality before plunging back in to work out the details of their rough-edged plan with Koushiro. It was nice to be able to sit down and breathe for once, although Daisuke couldn't shut his mind off to everything nagging in the back of his brain. He mentally groaned and reached for the steaming bowl in front of him. "Why do you ask, anyway?" he started the conversation again after slurping down a bite. "Do you not trust him or something?" The blonde shrugged and Daisuke's eyes narrowed. "Did he say something to you? Anything I need to know about?"

Stirring his chopsticks around in his noodles, Takeru shrugged a little. "No, nothing like that. I just thought it was weird that you sort of... went ahead and trusted him so quickly, even though you don't exactly... er. Never mind."

Leaning against the table again, the darker boy rolled his eyes. "Go ahead and say it."

The blonde shifted a bit uncomfortably. "You don't trust me, but you trust him. And he really just... came out of nowhere. I don't understand."

Daisuke sat back slightly, scraping the bottom of his bowl for any last noodles. "I didn't have much of a choice. At the time, Ken was the only lead we had. And by the time we followed everything else though, he was already in on everything." He tossed his chopsticks into the bowl and shoved it off to the side, dropping his chin down on the table glumly. "I still can't believe this whole thing. Bass is in on everything the whole time. He wasn't even... ugh. This whole fucking thing could have been avoided," he squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his arms over his eyes.

Scowling, Takeru rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't play the whole whiney act. Like you had any idea he was in on this shit."

"Taichi's gonna _kill_ me for getting his sister involved in something... non-existent."

The blonde sighed in exasperation. "Aw, Christ. Shut up."

Daisuke snapped his head up and shot a dangerous glare at Takeru. "What?"

"I said shut up! Quit feeling sorry for yourself, that's not going to do us any good. Shut up and get over it. Hikari's already in it, and you can't _change_ that, so stop _whining._ Christ," he grumbled, taking another bite of his food.

The other boy glared darkly at him for a long moment. Takeru chewed slowly and avoided eye contact, wondering if he should have opened his mouth at all. He mentally reminded himself of the last time he'd run his mouth off to Daisuke and found himself pinned violently to the floor. He swallowed hard. Daisuke wouldn't do that here... would he?

Finally, Daisuke reached up and pulled his goggles up onto his eyes. "You eat too slow," he mumbled, dropping his head back down on the table.

Takeru looked up. "You mad?"

"No." He shrugged. "You're right. I'm just bawling and feeling sorry for myself. Thanks. Sometimes I need a good wake-up call."

"Anytime. I'll hit you if you ever need it."

"Good to know," a slight grin twitched on Daisuke's face.

"The thing I don't understand," the blonde finished his food and slid the empty bowl across the table towards Daisuke's, "is why you didn't just go diving into the basement when you thought that was where Bass was."

"I _wanted_ to." Daisuke sat up and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your view... Taichi wouldn't let me. He was all, 'Oh, don't rush into things, we need a plan, a plan!' You know, I don't like plans." He shifted in the chair and glance out the window. "I'm an action guy."

"So I've noticed," Takeru dropped his chin into his hand and leaned his elbow on the table. "But I suppose even if you had followed it through, you never would have found him anyway. This whole thing makes my head spin. It's like somebody started writing a story and then the plot changed, so they had to switch a bunch of stuff... and everything doesn't really connect right."

"Eh," the darker boy shrugged. "If this is somebody's idea of a novel, I hope I die in the end of it."

"I hope not."

Daisuke turned back from the window and eyed the blonde before he smirked slightly. "You know, if I don't trust you, it isn't your fault. It's mine." He stood up and stretched with a yawn. "Let's go, we have to go off and make some stupid plan."

Takeru rose and followed, blinking and trying to digest both sudden changes of subject. He walked silently along beside Daisuke, who had his hands jammed into his pockets and was humming quietly. He ran through things in his mind, trying to comprehend all the sides he'd seen to the other. Unfortunately, there were too many sides and so many different ways he could react... he was extremely unpredictable.

Takeru wasn't sure why he liked that fact. Normally he would hate it.

Daisuke suddenly stopped and grabbed him by the arm. "Hey, wait, dude. Wait a second."

"What?" the blonde turned and eyed him.

"...I want you to hit me as hard as you can!" Takeru stared at him blankly for a short moment, then started laughing. The darker boy grinned brightly and shoved his hands back into his pockets, walking on ahead. "You should smile more," he called over his shoulder. "You look good doing it."

The laughter stopped abruptly and Takeru blushed.

Daisuke only grinned wider.

Takeru woke up with a start and sat up slightly, his head spinning as he tried to remember where he was. The room was dark except for light filtering in from the picture window. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he picked out figures. Taichi was asleep in an armchair, curled up in a tight little ball. Koushirou was on the floor at his feet, laptop still resting in his lap, but his head tilted forward and his eyes shut in deep sleep. At his left was Ken, curled up on the floor, one hand cuffed to the coffee table. 'Just a precaution,' Yamato had assured him earlier that evening as he clicked the cuffs on and locked them, then put the key in his back pocket. Yamato was asleep in another soft arm-chair, legs flung over the arms and his guitar resting at the side. He had been practicing... Taichi was watching Koushirou plonk about on his laptop, Ken was grumbling to himself about the handcuffs, and Daisuke... Daisuke...

Takeru blinked and realized he was currently on the couch, leaning against Daisuke and using him as a pillow. Daisuke had been sitting next to him and they were both drifting off to sleep. Daisuke finally slumped over against one side of the couch and passed out, and apparently, Takeru somehow snuggled over that way in his own sleep.

The blonde slowly tried to sit up, so as not to disturb Daisuke or any of the other guys. He glanced at the clock. 3:43. Way too early to get up. He'd have to wander somewhere else to sleep.

A hand grabbed Takeru by the collar and tugged at him. "Don't get up," Daisuke mumbled, shifting slightly on the couch and opening one tired eye. "It was warm." Takeru blinked and stared down at Daisuke uncertainly. The darker boy responded by pulling him back down to lean against him again. "It's cold when you move," he whispered, then shut his eyes again and went back to sleep.

Takeru rested his chin on Daisuke's stomach. It was extremely comfortable here, and it was pretty warm... but didn't Daisuke mind that there was another guy sprawled out over him?

_Maybe he is gay,_ he thought, remembering what everyone was whispering the first few days Daisuke appeared at school.

'Besides, I'm not gay.' The words kicked Takeru in the stomach as he remembered back when Daisuke was explaining skating names to him. _No._

'You should smile more. You look good doing it.'

There was silence in the blonde's brain as the conflicting signals chewed at each other. Neither signal won by the time he fell back asleep.


	11. 11

_Welly welly well. Um. Instead of continuing with the storyline I thought it would be fun to stop for a second and do a short little flashback. This, then, is what really happened with Daisuke getting into the whole deal. Since he lied so much I thought it might be nice to have the real story written down somewhere, and here it is. Um, after this there's... two chapters left? I dunno. Maybe just one. This thing is winding down either way, and I'm glad. It's been ridin' me for over a year and I'll be glad to put it to rest and be able to start on other stuff._

_Anyway, please R&R._

..._next chapter we touch down in Daikeru land. Har. ; _

The November day dawned cold and cloudy, freezing rain cutting through the air all morning and finally tapering off in the late afternoon. The streets of Odaiba slowly crawled to life in the cold, wet air.

A large man wandered his way around downtown, splashing through the same puddles several times as he circled one block again and again. Every time he went past, he glanced into the same shop. His prey was still in there.

The fourth time around, his prey was standing at the window and locked eyes with him. They shared a short glance as the man kept walking.

Inside, the prey snorted. Circling the block was a bad idea, since he not only realized he was being followed, but had confirmed it as the man passed the window over and over again, always heading in the same direction.

He stepped outside and headed down the street, stopping at the corner and leaning against the pole of a streetlight. If whoever it was following him wanted to meet him_ that _badly, he would simply wait.

On the fifth circle, the man locked eyes on him from the opposite end of the block and didn't remove his dark gaze until he reached his prey's end. He leaned against the wall of a shop across the sidewalk from the pole and studied his prey closer. He was wearing dark, baggy jeans that were soaked at the edges and a dark blue hoodie. His eyes were hidden under a blue floppy hat, as was a good deal of his face as he studied the ground silently, waiting for the hunter to speak first. For a moment, the man almost left and started walking again. This... punk... couldn't be the one he was looking for.

Just before he pushed off the shop wall, the man noticed something under the sweatshirt. A pair of orange and blue goggles hung around his neck, tucked under his sweatshirt and barely visible. The goggles were it. This was the one he wanted.

"Motomiya Daisuke?"

"That's me." Daisuke finally looked up and the man could see his face for the first time – besides glimpsing him through a store window.

"You should come with me."

"No, I _should_ go wait for the bus and go home. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers, you know."

Silence. The man gritted his teeth. He did _not_ want to have to deal with a punkass little brat who was going to be smart instead of cooperate. Finally, the man pushed off the wall and placed an arm around Daisuke. "You _will_ come with me, though," he levelly responded, his voice not carrying any hint of threat or annoyance.

Daisuke seemed amused. "All right."

Easy enough. The man led his prey down the street, getting no strange glances from people who could easily assume the two as father and son. As they went, the man spoke. "You were friends with a boy named Bass, correct?"

"I knew him, yeah," Daisuke shrugged slightly.

"Are you aware of his current... situation?"

Silence. Daisuke pulled away from the arm around his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets, but kept walking alongside of him. "Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you know about him?"

"Osaruka. No further explanation of who I am is necessary, I believe."

Daisuke scowled under the hat. "No further explanation necessary at all. What do you want with me? How do you even know me?"

"My son mentions friends to me every now and then." Silence. "He mentioned you and your... skills."

More silence. Osaruka said nothing to press it further, until Daisuke responded, in that blank, even tone Osaruka had used before, "I'm not sure what skills you're talking about."

"Of course you do," Osaruka responded just as levelly.

"I have all _sorts_ of... skills, sir," Daisuke tilted an eyebrow down under his hat. "You'll have to be a bit specific on what you're talking about."

The crowd had begun to filter away on the streets as Osaruka continued to lead Daisuke towards the east side of town. "I'm aware of some remarkable hacking jobs you did in California."

"Oh. That," the boy shrugged lightly. "I'm afraid you've wasted your time. I don't do that anymore."

"No?"

Daisuke frowned. "Look, hacking is serious shit depending on who you mess with. I nearly got my ass busted real good back in Cali and I'm not gonna do that bullshit again. So forget it."

Osaruka raised an arm as if to place it around Daisuke's shoulders again, but instead placed his hand on the back of his neck, lightly enough, but firmly. "I'm sure I can change your mind," he used that even tone again, smiling brightly.

The two stopped and Osaruka pushed the door of an old office building open easily. He pushed Daisuke through the door, again being firm more than rough, and slammed the door behind him. "Sit."

Daisuke spun a chair around and flopped down on it, backwards, and dropped his chin on the back of it. "I won't do it," he repeated, dropping the even tone for a grim one.

Osaruka sat down at an old table and placed his feet on it. "You are aware of how high-tech the Byen-cho system is?"

"Yes."

"You are aware of how much of their system is on a computer."

"Yes."

Osaruka smiled. "Then you will get into the system and discover where they are keeping Bass."

"No," Daisuke shook his head.

The room was silent. Osaruka pushed away from the desk and circled Daisuke quietly. Finally, he stopped behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I can give you enough ecstasy to put you in a coma in thirty seconds."

Daisuke bit his lip and glared at the opposite side of the room. Christ. What an offer. Easy suicide, and for nothing more than hacking through a system. Even if he was caught into something, he'd be dead! Chewing at his lip, the boy finally mumbled, "No."

"One thousand," Osaruka scowled. Daisuke didn't respond for a moment, then shook his head. "Two thousand." The silence stretched longer, but Daisuke shook his head once more. "Five thousand. That's all."

Daisuke's brain screamed at him, and he bit his lip so hard it started to bleed. This was the last offer. Convincing himself he was only doing it because if he said no Osaruka would likely put a bullet through his head, he finally nodded.

Smiling, Osaruka lifted his hand from Daisuke's shoulders. "I'm glad we've reached a compromise."

"I'm in," Daisuke lifted his eyes from the monitor, blinking through his goggles at the screen in front of him. That was almost _too_ easy.

Osaruka waved a hand in the air. "What are you waiting for? Find him."

Daisuke chewed at his lip briefly, then winced because it still hurt from before and bit at his tongue instead as he poked through the Byen-cho system. The smell of the joint Osaruka was burning – not even smoking it, but just burning it as if he wanted to prove he could afford to throw pot away like that – was driving him crazy. He _hated_ smelling it and not even being offered any. Bad smoking etiquette.

Snarling to himself, Daisuke staggered through the system in search of anything recent that would tip off where Bass was located. Security logs were the first thing that caught his eye. Scrolling through, he read words under his breath. The log turned out to be nothing more than a detail of updates and relocations of security... wait. Leaning forward, Daisuke dragged a finger down the monitor. "Why is all this activity going on at some old wine cellar..."

Osaruka sat up. "A wine cellar?"

Daisuke scrolled his way through the list slowly. "Yeah... the systems were checked and extra security was added to some dumpy old-"

"That's it," Osaruka was suddenly hovering over Daisuke and attempting to peer over his shoulder at the monitor. "The extra security is because of Bass."

Running his tongue along his teeth, Daisuke shook his head as he scrolled. "Can't be. Why would they? Wouldn't they want to put him somewhere more, I don't know... centrally located to their base...?"

"No. That would be the first place we would look. Find me the location of it."

Shrugging, Daisuke left the security log and ran through to find locations. "This should be more diffi – hello."

"Found it?"

"Yeah." The boy leaned closer to the screen, shaking his head slightly to remove dark red hair from his eyes. "Right here," he scowled.

Osaruka scribbled the address down, beaming. "I knew you were the right one for the job. No one else but you, Bass always used to say you could do anything faster... nobody else could have found that information so fast! Well worth the cost..." he continued muttering congratulations, though it sounded more like he was praising himself than Daisuke.

Daisuke, however, wasn't listening and simply stared at the screen. It was way too easy, and this made him nervous. Maybe it was a trap, or a setup of some kind... the Byen-cho couldn't be that stupid to leave all this information lying around. Why even have the location of one of your own bases written on your system? No, this was too easy, and it was not good. Chewing away at the inside of his cheek, Daisuke debated if he wanted to mention it to Osaruka, who was so thrilled at the supposed discovery of his son's location he wasn't paying attention to the stunned silence of his hacker. He decided to ignore Osaruka and the current information and try to find something else. If it _was_ a trap, there would be _something_ referring to the real location of Bass on one part of the system or other.

The screen flashed as he slid through screen after screen, unsatisfied. Nothing. He found something regarding an ambush on the Kaze later in the month, but since it didn't mention Bass, he didn't mention it to Osaruka. It was not his business to get into the middle of any of this... not any more than he already was, anyway.

The next file wouldn't open. Scowling, he skipped it and went to the next. It wouldn't open, either. "Shit," Daisuke cursed under his breath and quickly tried to back out of the system before he was booted out.

Osaruka finally noticed Daisuke wasn't celebrating like he was and eyed him. "What are you doing?"

"Just... _shit,_" he snarled as he found himself facing an empty screen. "I got blocked out of the system." Plopping chin into hand, he studied the screen quietly. "I'll have to try somewhere else, and probably find a new way in..."

"What for? We have what we needed," Osaruka narrowed one eye at him. "...Don't we?"

Daisuke swallowed. "Yeah. I was just double-checking." The lie seemed to work, or Osaruka wasn't interested, and he slumped back in the chair, pulling the goggles from his eyes and dropping them to hang slack around his neck. Maybe it wasn't a setup at all. Maybe he was just damn good.

Osaruka was writing out a few checks, going on about how he was breaking it up into five amounts and don't deposit them all at once, people get suspicious, blah blah blah... stuff Daisuke already knew. He only half-listened as he pulled on his hat. He wasn't fooling himself. Something was seriously wrong. It was too easy. It was a setup. He'd talk to that kid... what's his name, the techie geek... Koush. Yeah, him. He'd ask his opinion on the whole thing. He could trust him. Hackers stick together. Usually.

He scratched his chin in thought and suddenly realized Osaruka was staring at him. "Uh. What?"

Sliding the checks across the desk, Osaruka added the paper with the address to the top of the pile. "Get him back yourself and I'll double it."

Scowling, Daisuke shoved hands into his pockets. _ 'He doesn't want to pay me. He knows it's a trap. He wants me dead and out of the way.' _ "I don't think I should get messed up in this."

Osaruka slid open a drawer of the desk and was pulling things out and setting them on the table, as if Daisuke had agreed already. Presenting Daisuke with a .22, he also fished out a larger gun and started adding ammo to the desk. "You know how to shoot one of these, right?"

"Listen, I really don't think I should..."

Loading a clip into the larger gun he was still holding, Osaruka aimed it casually at the ceiling. "Are you aware that you've been marked already?"

Daisuke scowled again and set the .22 onto the desk, wiping his hands on his jeans. "No, I was not aware. Why? How? And since when?" The response was silence. Growling, Daisuke spun around and started pacing the room. _ 'How the hell... why the... URGH. I'm so pissed I can't even curse!'_

"You don't really have a choice," Osaruka finally stated.

Running one hand through his dark red hair, the boy nodded. "I gathered."

Osaruka smiled and held the .22 out to him again. "You accept, then?"

Daisuke frowned and shook his head, but held out his hand. "Yeah, I guess."

_So he basically just has bad luck. That was it! Yay! Um. Well, R&R. It inspires me to hurry up when people like things. P_


End file.
